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ATTIC PHILOSOPHER 
IN PARIS 

OR 

A PEEP AT THE WORLD 
EROM A GARRET 

BEING THE JOURNAL OF A HAPPY MAN 


FROM THE FRENCH OF 

EMILE SOUVESTEE 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1901 





7 ^ 

6 3 ‘ 


V 


T 


ADVEETISEMENT. 


We know a man who, in the midst of the 
fever of restlessness and of ambition which racks 
society in our times, continues to fill his humble 
part in the world without a murmur, and who 
still preserves, so to speak, the taste for poverty. 
With no other fortune than a small clerkship, 
which enables him to live within the narrow 
limits which separate competence from want, 
our philosopher looks from the height of his 
attic upon society as upon a sea, of which he 
neither covets the riches nor fears the wrecks. 
Being too insignificant to excite the envy of 
any one, he sleeps peacefully, wrapped in his 
obscurity. 

ISTot that he retreats into egotism, as a tor- 
toise into its shell! He is the man of whom 
Terence says that “ nothing human seems for- 


4 


ADVEKTISEMENT. 


eign to him ! ’’ All external objects and inci- 
dents are reflected in his mind as in a camera 
obscura, which presents their images in a picture. 
He “ looks at society as it is^ in itself,” with the 
patient curionsness which belongs to recluses; 
and he writes a monthly journal of what he has 
seen or thought. It is the “ Calendar of his Im- 
pressions,” as he is wont to call it. 

We have been allowed to look over it, and 
have extracted some pages which may make the 
reader acquainted with the commonplace adven- 
tures of an unknown thinker in those twelve 
hostebies of Time called Months. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

Advertisement 

I. — The Attic New-Year’s Gifts 

II. — The Carnival 

III. — What we may Learn by Looking 

Window .... 

IV. — Let us Love one Another 

Y. — Compensation .... 

VI. — Uncle Maurice 

VII. — The Price of Power and the Worth 

VIII. — Misanthropy and Eepentance 

IX. — The Family op Michael Arout . 

X. — Our Country .... 
XI. — Moral Use of Inventories 
XU. — The End of the Year 


PAGB 

. 3 

7 

. 18 

OUT OF 

32 
. 44 
67 
. 71 
OF Fame 88 
106 
. 119 
137 
. 156 
. 177 








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AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE ATTIC new-year’s GIFTS. 

January 1st . — The day of the month came in- 
to my mind as soon as I awoke. Another year is 
separated from the chain of ages, and drops into 
the gulf of the past ! The crowd hasten to wel- 
come her young sister. But while all looks are 
turned toward the future, mine revert to the past. 
Every one smiles upon the new queen ; but, in 
spite of myself, I think of her whom time has just 
wrapped in her winding-sheet. The past year ! — 
at least I know what she was, and what she has 
given me ; while this one comes surrounded by 
all the forebodings of the unknown. What does 
she hide in the clouds which mantle her ? Is it 
the storm or the sunshine ? Just now it rains, and 
I feel my mind as gloomy as the sky. I have a 
holiday to-day ; but what can one do with a rainy 
day ? I walk up and down my attic out of tem- 
per, and I determine to light my fire. 


8 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Unfortunately the matches are bad, the chim- 
ney smokes, the wood goes out ! I throw down 
my bellows in disgust, and sink into my old arm- 
chair. 

In truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth 
of a new year ? All those who are already in the 
streets, with the holiday looks and smiling faces 
— do they understand what makes them so gay ? 
Do they even know what is the meaning of this 
holiday, or whence comes the custom of New- 
Year’s gifts ? 

Here my mind pauses to prove to itself its su- 
periority over that of the vulgar. I make a 
parenthesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, 
and I bring together all the evidence which my 
knowledge can produce. 

(The old Homans divided the year into ten 
months only ; it was Numa Pompilius who added 
January and February. The former took its name 
from Janus, to whom it was dedicated. As it op- 
ened the new year, they surrounded its commence- 
ment with good omens, and thence came the cus- 
tom of visits between neighbors, of wishing happi- 
ness, and of New- Yearns gifts. The presents given 
by the Romans were symbolic. They consisted 
of dry figs, dates, honeycomb, as emblems of “ the 
sweetness of the auspices under which the year 
should begin its course,” and a small piece of 
money called stips, which foreboded riches.) 

Here I close the parenthesis, and return to my 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 


9 


ill-humor. The little speech * I have just ad- 
dressed to myself has restored me my self-satisfac- 
tion, but made me more dissatisfied with others. 
I could now enjoy my breakfast ; but the portress 
has forgotten my morning’s milk, and the pot of 
preserves is empty I Any one else would have 
been vexed : as for me, I affect the most supreme 
indifference. There remains a hard crust, which 
I break by main strength, and which I carelessly 
nibble, as a man far above the vanities of the 
world and of fresh rolls. 

However, I do not know why my thoughts 
should grow more gloomy by reason of the difii- 
culties of m;astication. I once read the story of 
an Englishman who hanged himself because they 
had brought him his tea without sugar. There 
are hours in life when the most trifling cross takes 
the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an 
opera-glass, which makes the object small or great 
according to the end you look through. 

Generally, the prospect which opens out be- 
fore my window delights me. It is a mountain 
range of roofs, with ridges crossing, interlacing, 
and piled on one another, and upon which tall 
chimneys raise their peaks. It was but yester- 
day that they had an Alpine aspect to me, and I 
waited for the first snow-storm to see glaciers 
among them ; to-day, I only see tiles and stone 
flues. The pigeons, which assisted my rural illu- 
* Spitch, in the original. 


10 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

sions, seem no more than miserable birds which 
have mistaken the roof for the back yard ; the 
smoke, which rises in light clouds, instead of 
making me dream of the panting of Vesuvius, 
reminds me of kitchen preparations and dish- 
water ; and lastly, the telegraph, that I see far 
off on the old tower of Montmartre, has the 
effect of a vile gallows stretching its arms over 
the city. 

My eyes, thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon 
the great man’s house which faces my attic. 

The influence of New-Year’s day is visible 
there. The servants have an air of eagerness 
proportioned to the value of their New-Year’s 
gifts, received or expected. I see the master of 
the house crossing the court with the morose look 
of a man who is forced to be generous ; and the 
visitors increase, followed by shop porters who 
carry flowers, band-boxes, or toys. All at once 
the great gates are opened, and a new carriage, 
drawn by thorough-bred horses, draws up before 
the door-steps. They are, without doubt, the 
New-Year’s gift presented to the mistress of the 
house by her husband ; for she comes herself to 
look at the new equipage. Very soon she gets 
into it with a little girl, all streaming with laces, 
feathers, and velvets, and loaded with parcels 
which she goes to distribute as New-Year’s gifts. 
The door is shut, the windows are drawn up, the 
carriage sets off. 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 


11 


Thus all the world are exchanging good 
wishes and presents to-day : I alone have nothing 
to give or to receive. Poor Solitary ! I do not 
even know one chosen being for whom I might 
offer a prayer. 

Then let my wishes for a happy New Year 
go, and seek out all my unknown friends^ — lost in 
the multitude which murmurs like the ocean at 
my feet ! 

To you first, hermits in cities, for whom death 
and poverty have created a solitude in the midst 
of the crowd ! unhappy laborers, who are con- 
demned to toil in melancholy, and eat your daily 
bread in silence and desertion, and whom God 
has withdrawn from the intoxicating pangs of 
love or friendship ! 

To you, fond dreamers, who pass through life 
with your eyes turned toward some polar star, 
while you tread with indifference over the rich 
harvests of reality ! 

To you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the 
evening to maintain your families ! to you, poor 
widows, weeping and working by a cradle ! to 
you, young men, resolutely set to open for your- 
selves a path in life, large enough to lead through 
it the wife of your choice ! to you, all brave sol- 
diers of work and of self-sacrifice ! 

To you, lastly, whatever your title and your 
name, who love good, who pity the suffering ; 
who walk through the world like the symbolical 


12 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Virgin of Byzantium, with both arms open to the 
human race ! 

Here I am suddenly interrupted by loud 

and increasing chirpings. I look about me : my 
window is surrounded with sparrows picking up 
the crumbs of bread which in my brown study I 
had just scattered on the roof. At this sight a 
flash of light broke upon my saddened heart. I 
deceived myself just now, when I complained 
that I had nothing to give : thanks to me, the 
sparrows of this part of the town will have their 
New-Year’s gifts ! 

Twelve o'clock . — A knock at my door ; a poor 
girl comes in, and greets me by name. At first I 
do not recollect her ; but she looks at me, and 
smiles. Ah ! it is Paulette ! But it is almost a 
year since I have seen her, and Paulette is no 
longer the same ; the other day she was a child, 
now she is almost a young woman. 

Paulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad ; but 
she has always the same open and straightforward 
look — the same mouth, smiling at every word, as 
if to court your sympathy — the same voice, some- 
what timid, yet expressing fondness. Paulette is 
not pretty — she is even thought plain ; as for me, 
I think her charming. Perhaps that is not on 
her account, but on my own. Paulette appears 
to me as a part of one of my happiest recollec- 
tions. 

It was the evening of a public holiday. Our 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 


13 


principal buildings were illuminated with festoons 
of fire, a thousand flags waved in the night winds, 
and the fireworks had just shot forth their spouts 
of flame into the midst of the Champ de Mars. 
All of a sudden, one of those unaccountable alarms 
which strike a multitude with panic fell upon the 
dense crowd : they cry out, they rush on head- 
long ; the weaker ones fall, and the frightened 
crowd tramples them down in its convulsive 
struggles. I escaped from the confusion by a 
miracle, and was hastening away, when the cries 
of a perishing child arrested me : I reentered that 
human chaos, and, after unheard-of exertions, I 
brought Paulette out of it at the peril of my 
life. 

That was two years ago : since then I had 
not seen the child again but at long intervals, and 
I had almost forgotten her ; but Paulette’s mem- 
ory was that of a grateful heart, and she came at 
the beginning of the year to oflier me her wishes 
for my happiness. She brought me, besides, a 
wallflower in full bloom ; she herself had planted 
and reared it : it was something that belonged 
wholly to herself ; for it was by her care, her 
perseverance, and her patience, that she had ob- 
tained it. 

The wallflower had grown in a common pot ; 
but Paulette, who is a bandbox-maker, had put it 
into a case of varnished paper, ornamented with 
arabesques. These might have ‘ been in better 


14 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


taste, but I did not feel the attention and good- 
will the less. 

This unexpected present, the little girl’s mod- 
est blushes, the compliments she stammered out, 
dispelled, as by a sunbeam, the kind of mist 
which had gathered round my mind ; my thoughts 
suddenly changed from the leaden tints of even- 
ing to the brightest colors of dawn. I made Pau- 
lette sit down, and questioned her with a light 
heart. 

At first the little girl replied by monosyllables ; 
but very soon the tables were turned, and it was 
I who interrupted with short interjections her 
long and confidential talk. The poor child leads 
a hard life. She was left an orphan long since, 
with a brother and sister, and lives with an old 
grandmother, who has hr ought them up to poverty, 
as she always calls it. 

However, Paulette now helps her to make 
bandboxes, her little sister Perrine begins to use 
the needle, and her brother Henry is apprentice 
to a printer. All would go well if it were not 
for losses and want of work — if it were not for 
clothes which wear out, for appetites which grow 
larger, and for the winter, when you can not get 
sunshine for nothing. Paulette complains that 
her candles go too quickly, and that her wood 
costs too much. The fireplace in their garret is 
so large that a fagot makes no more show in it 
than a match ; it is so near the roof that the wind 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 


15 


blows the rain down it, and in winter it hails 
upon the hearth ; so they have left off using it. 
Henceforth they must be content with an earthen 
chafing-dish, upon which they cook their meals. 
The grandmother had often spoken of a stove 
that was for sale at the broker’s close by ; but he 
asked seven francs for it, and the times are too 
hard for such an expense : the family, therefore, 
resign themselves to cold for economy ! 

As Paulette spoke, I felt more and more that 
I was losing my fretfulness and low spirits. The 
first disclosures of the little bandbox-maker cre- 
ated within me a wish that soon became a plan. 
I questioned her about her daily occupations, and 
she informed me that on leaving me she must go, 
with her brother, her sister, and grandmother, to 
the different people for whom they work. My 
plan was immediately settled. I told the child 
that I would go to see her in the evening, and I 
sent her away with fresh thanks. 

I placed the wallfiower in the open window, 
where a ray of sunshine bid it welcome ; the birds 
were singing around, the sky had cleared up, and 
the day, which began so loweringly, had become 
bright. I sang as I moved about my room, and, 
having hastily put on my hat and coat, I went 
out. 

Three d^cloclc . — All is settled with my neigh- 
bor, the chimney-doctor ; he will repair my old 
stove, and answers for its being as good as new. 


16 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


At five o’clock we are to set out, and put it up in 
Paulette’s grandmother’s room. 

Midnight , — All has gone off well. At the 
hour agreed upon, I was at the old bandbox-mak- 
er’s ; she was still out. My Piedmontese * fixed 
the stove, while I arranged a dozen logs in the 
great fireplace, taken from my winter stock. I 
shall make up for them by warming myself with 
walking, or by going to bed earlier. 

My heart beat at every step which was heard 
on the staircase ; I trembled lest they should in- 
terrupt me in my preparations, and should thus 
spoil my intended surprise. But no — see every- 
thing ready : the lighted stove murmurs gently, 
the little lamp burns upon the table, and a bottle 
of oil for it is provided on the shelf. The chim- 
ney-doctor is gone. Now, my fear lest they should 
come is changed into impatience at their not com- 
ing. At last I hear children’s voices ; here they 
are : they push open the door and rush in — ^but 
they all stop in astonishment. 

At the sight of the lamp, the stove, and the 
visitor, who stands there like a magician in the 
midst of these wonders, they draw back almost 
frightened. Paulette is the first to comprehend 
it, and the arrival of the grandmother, who is more 
slowly mounting the stairs, finishes the explana- 
tion. Then come tears, ecstasies, thanks ! 

* In Paris a chimney-sweeper is named “ Piedmontese ” or 
“ Savoyard,” as they usually come from that country. 


THE ATTIC NEW-YEAR’S GIFTS. 


17 


But the wonders are not yet ended. The little 
sister opens the oven, and discovers some chest- 
nuts just roasted ; the grandmother puts her hand 
on the bottles of cider arranged on the dresser ; 
and I draw forth from the basket that I have hid- 
den a cold tongue, a pot of butter, and some fresh 
rolls. 

Now their wonder turns into admiration ; the 
little family have never seen such a feast ! They 
lay the cloth, they sit down, they eat ; it is a com- 
plete banquet for all, and each contributes his 
share to it. I had brought only the supper : and 
the bandbox-maker and her children supplied the 
enjoyment. 

What bursts of laughter at nothing ! What a 
hubbub of questions which waited for no reply, of 
replies which answered no question ! The old 
woman herself shared in the wild merriment of the 
little ones ! I have always been struck at the ease 
with which the poor forget their wretchedness. 
Being only used to live for the present, they make 
a gain of every pleasure as soon as it offers itself. 
But the surfeited rich are more difficult to satisfy : 
they require time and everything to suit before 
they will consent to be happy. 

The evening has passed like a moment. The 
old woman told me the history of her life, some- 
times smiling, sometimes drying her eyes. Per- 
rine sang an old ballad with her fresh, young voice. 
Henry told us what he knows of the great writers 
2 


18 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


of the day, to whom he has to carry their proofs. 
At last we were obliged to separate, not without 
fresh thanks on the part of the happy family. 

I have come home slowly, ruminating with a 
full heart, and pure enjoyment, on the simple 
events of my evening. It has given me much 
comfort and much instruction. Now, no New- 
Year’s Day will come amiss to me ; I know that no 
one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give and 
nothing to receive. 

As I came in, I met my rich neighbor’s new 
equipage. She, too, had just returned from her 
evening’s party ; and, as she sprang from the car- 
riage-step with feverish impatience, I heard her 
murmur — At last! 

I, when I left Paulette’s family, said — So soon ! 


CHAPTER II. 

THE CARNIVAL. 

February 20th . — What a noise out of doors ! 
What is the meaning of these shouts and cries ? 
Ah ! I recollect : this is the last day of the Carni- 
val, and the maskers are passing. 

Christianity has not been able to abolish the 
noisy bacchanalian festivals of the pagan times, 
but it has changed the names. That which it has 
given to these ‘'days of liberty ” announces the 


THE CARNIVAL. 


19 


ending of the feasts, and the month of fasting 
which should follow; carn-i-vaV* means liter- 
ally, “ down loith flesh meat ! ” It is a forty days’ 
farewell to the “ blessed pullets and fat hams,” so 
celebrated by Pantagruel’s minstrel. Man pre- 
pares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin 
thoroughly before he begins to repent. 

Why, in all ages and among every people, do 
we meet with some one of these mad festivals ? 
Must we believe that it requires such an effort for 
men to be reasonable, that the weaker ones have 
need of rests at intervals? The monks of La 
Trappe, who are condemned to silence by their 
rule, are allowed to speak once in a month, and on 
this day they all talk at once from the rising to 
the setting of the sun. 

Perhaps it is the same in the world. As we 
are obliged all the year to be decent, orderly, and 
reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint 
during the Carnival. It is a door opened to the 
incongruous fancies and wishes which have hith- 
erto been crowded back into a corner of our brain. 
For a moment the slaves become the masters, as 
in the days of the Saturnalia, and everything is 
given up to the “ fools of the family.” 

The shouts in the Square redouble ; the troops 
of masks increase — on foot, in carriages, and on 
horseback. It is now who can attract the most 
attention by making a figure for a few hours, or 
by exciting curiosity or envy ; to-morrow they will 


20 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


all return, dull and exhausted, to the employments 
and troubles of yesterday. 

Alas ! thought I with vexation, each of us is 
like these masqueraders ; our whole life is often 
but an unsightly Carnival I And yet man has 
need of holidays, to relax his mind, rest his body, 
and Open his heart. Can he not have them, then, 
with these coarse pleasures ? Economists have 
been long inquiring what is the best disposal of 
the industry of the human race. Ah ! if I could 
only discover the best disposal of its leisure ! It 
is easy enough to find it work ; but who will find 
it relaxation? Work supplies the daily bread ; 
but it is cheerfulness which gives it a relish. O 
philosophers ! go in quest of pleasure ! find us 
amusements without brutality, enjoyments with- 
out selfishness ; in a word, invent a Carnival which 
will please everybody, and bring shame to no one. 

Three o’clock . — I have just shut my window, 
and stirred up my fire. As this is a holiday for 
everybody, I will make it one for myself too. So 
I light the little lamp over which, on grand occa- 
sions, I make a cup of the coffee that my portress’s 
son brought from the Levant, and I look in my 
bookcase for one of my favorite authors. 

First, here is the amusing parson of Meudon ; 
but his characters are too fond of talking slang : 
— Voltaire ; but he disheartens men by always 
bantering them : — Moliere ; but he hinders one’s 
laughter by making one think : — Lesage ; let us 


THE CAKNIVAL. 


21 


stop at him. Being profound rather than grave, 
he preaches virtue while ridiculing vice ; if bitter- 
ness is sometimes to be found in his writings, it is 
always in the garb of mirth : he see the miseries 
of the world without despising it, and knows its 
cowardly tricks without hating it. 

Let us call up all the heroes of his book. Gil 
Bias, Fabrice, Sangrado, the Archbishop of Gran- 
ada, the Duke of Lerma, Aurora, Scipio ! Ye gay 
or graceful figures, rise before my eyes, people 
my solitude ; bring hither for my amusement the 
world-carnival, of which you are the brilliant 
maskers ! 

Unfortunately, at the very moment I made 
this invocation, I recollected I had a letter to 
write which could not be put off. One of my 
attic neighbors came yesterday to ask me to do 
it. He is a cheerful old man, and has a passion 
for pictures and prints. He comes home almost 
every day with a drawing or painting — probably 
of little value ; for I know he lives penuriously, 
and even the letter that I am to write for him 
shows his poverty. His only son, who was mar- 
ried in England, is just dead, and his widow — 
left without any means, and with an old mother 
and a child — had written to beg for a home. M. 
Antoine asked me first to translate the letter, and 
then to write a refusal. I had promised that he 
should have this answer to-day : before every- 
thing, let us fulfill our promises. 


22 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The sheet of “ Bath ” paper is before me, I 
have dipped my pen into the ink, and I rub my 
forehead to invite forth a sally of ideas, when 
I perceive that I have not my dictionary. Now, 
a Parisian who would speak English without a 
dictionary is like a child without leading-strings ; 
the ground trembles under him, and he stumbles 
at the first step. I run then to the bookbinder’s 
where I left my Johnson, and who lives close by 
in the Square. 

The door is half open ; I hear low groans ; I 
enter without knocking, and I see the bookbinder 
by the bedside of his fellow-lodger. This latter 
has a violent fever and delirium. Pierre looks at 
him perplexed and out of humor. I learn from 
him that his comrade was not able to get up in 
the morning, and that since then he has become 
worse every hour. 

I ask if they have sent for a doctor. 

“ Oh yes, indeed ! ” replied Pierre roughly ; 
‘‘ one must have money in one’s pocket for that, 
and this fellow has only debts instead of savings.” 

‘‘ But you,” said I, rather astonished ; “ are 
you not his friend ? ” 

“ Friend ! ” interrupted the bookbinder. ‘‘ Yes, 
as much as the shaft-horse is friend to the leader 
— on condition that each will take his share of the 
draught, and eat his feed by himself.” 

“You do not intend, however, to leave him 
without any help ? ” 


THE CARNIVAL. 


23 


“ Bah ! he may keep in his bed till to-morrow, 
as I’m going to the ball.” 

“ You mean to Teave him alone ? ” 

“Well ! must I miss a party of pleasure at 
Courtville * because this fellow is light-headed ? ” 
asked Pierre sharply. “ I have promised to meet 
some friends at old Desnoyer’s. Those who are 
sick may take their broth ; my physic is white 
wine.” 

So saying, he untied a bundle, out of which 
he took the fancy costume of a waterman, and 
proceeded to dress himself in it. 

In vain I tried to awaken some fellow-feeling 
for the unfortunate man who lay groaning there, 
close by him ; being entirely taken up with the 
thoughts of his expected pleasure, Pierre would 
hardly so much as hear me. At last his coarse 
selfishness provoked me. I began reproaching 
instead of remonstrating with him, and I de- 
clared him responsible for the consequences 
which such a desertion must bring upon the sick 
man. 

At this the bookbinder, who was just going, 
stopped with an oath, and stamped his foot. “ Am 
I to spend my Carnival in heating water for foot- 
baths, pray ? ” 

“ You must not leave your comrade to die with- 
out help ! ” I replied. 

“ Let him go to the hospital, then ! ” 

* A Paris Yauxhall. 


24 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ How can lie by bimself ? ” 

Pierre seemed to make up his mind. 

“Well, I’m going to take him,” resumed he ; 
“besides, I shall get rid of him sooner. Come, 
get up, comrade ! ” He shook his comrade, who 
had not taken off his clothes. I observed that he 
was too weak to walk, but the bookbinder would 
not listen : he made him get up, and half dragged, 
half supported him to the lodge of the porter, who 
ran for a hackney carriage. I saw the sick man 
get into it, almost fainting, with the impatient 
waterman ; and they both set off, one perhaps to 
die, the other to dine at Courtville gardens ! 

Six o’clock , — I have been to knock at my neigh- 
bor’s door, who opened it himself ; and I have 
given him his letter, finished at last, and directed 
to his son’s widow. M. Antoine thanked me grate- 
fully, and made me sit down. 

It was the first time I had been into the attic 
of the old amateur. Curtains stained with damp 
and hanging down in rags, a cold stove, a bed of 
straw, two broken chairs, composed all the furni- 
ture. At the end of the room were a great num- 
ber of prints in a heap, and paintings without 
frames turned against the wall. 

At the moment I came in, the old man was 
making his dinner on some hard crusts of bread, 
which he was soaking in a glass of eau sucr'ce. 
He perceived that my eyes fell upon his hermit 
fare, and he looked a little ashamed. 


THE CARNIVAL. 


25 


“ There is nothing to tempt you in my supper, 
neighbor,” said he with a smile. 

I replied that at least I thought it a very phil- 
osophical one for the Carnival. 

M. Antoine shook his head, and went on again 
with his supper. 

“Every one keeps his holidays in his own 
way,” resumed he, beginning again to dip a crust 
into his glass. “ There are several sorts of epi- 
cures, and all feasts are not meant to regale the 
palate ; there are some also for the ears and the 
eyes.” 

I looked involuntarily round me, as if to seek 
for the invisible banquet which could make up to 
him for such a supper. 

Without doubt he understood me ; for he got 
up slowly, and, with the magisterial air of a man 
confident in what he is about to do, he rummaged 
behind several picture frames, drew forth a paint- 
ing, over which he passed his hand, and silently 
placed it under the light of the lamp. 

It represented a fine-looking old man, seated at 
table with his wife, his daughter, and his children, 
and singing to the accompaniment of musicians 
who appeared in the background. At first sight 
I recognized the subject, which I had often ad- 
mired at the Louvre, and I declared it to be a 
splendid copy of Jordaens. 

“ A copy ! ” cried M. Antoine ; “ say an ori- 
ginal, neighbor, and an original retouched by Ru- 


26 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


bens ! Look closer at the head of the old man, 
the dress of the young woman, and the accessories. 
One can count the pencil strokes of the Hercules 
of painters. It is not only a masterpiece, sir ; it is 
a treasure — a relic ! The picture at the Louvre 
may be a pearl, this is a diamond ! ” 

And resting it against the stove, so as to place it 
in the best light, he fell again to soaking his crusts, 
without taking his eyes off the wonderful picture. 
One would have said that the sight of it gave the 
crusts an unexpected relish, for he chewed them 
slowly, and emptied his glass by little sips. His 
shriveled features became smooth, his nostrils ex- 
panded ; it was indeed, as he said himself, a feast 
of the eyes. 

“You see that I also have my treat,” resumed 
he, nodding his head with an air of triumph. 
Others may run after dinners and balls ; as for 
me, this is the pleasure I give myself for my 
Carnival.” 

“ But if this painting is really so precious,” re- 
plied I, “ it ought to be worth a high price.” 

“ Eh ! eh ! ” said M. Antoine, with an air of 
proud indifference. “ In good times, a good judge 
might value it at somewhere about twenty thou- 
sand francs.” 

I started back. 

“ And you have bought it ? ” cried 1. 

“For nothing,” replied he, lowering his voice. 
“ These brokers are asses ; mine mistook this for a 


THE CARNIVAL. 


2r 


student’s copy ; he let me have it for fifty louis, 
ready money ! This morning I took them to him, 
and now he wishes to be off the bargain.” 

“ This morning ! ” repeated I, involuntarily 
casting my eyes on the letter containing the re- 
fusal that M. Antoine had made me write to his 
son’s widow, and which was still on the little ta- 
ble. 

He took no notice of my exclamation, and 
went on contemplating the work of Jordaens in a 
kind of ecstasy. 

“ What a knowledge of chiaroscuro ! ” mur- 
mured he, biting his last crust in delight. “ What 
relief ! what fire ! Where can one find such 
transparency of color ! such magical lights ! such 
force ! such nature ! ” 

As I was listening to him in silence, he mistook 
my astonishment for admiration, and clapped me 
on the shoulder. 

“You are dazzled,” said he merrily ; “you did 
not expect such a treasure ! What do you say to 
the bargain I have made ? ” 

“ Pardon me,” replied I gravely ; “ but I think 
you might have done better.” 

M. Antoine raised his head. 

“How!” cried he; “do you take me for a 
man likely to be deceived about the merit or value 
of a painting ? ” 

“ I neither doubt your taste nor your skill ; 
but I can not help thinking that, for the price of 


2S an attic philosopher in PARIS. 

this picture of a family party, you might have 
had—” 

“ What then ? ” 

“The family itself, sir.” 

The old amateur cast a look at me, not of am 
ger, but of contempt. In his eyes I had evidently 
just proved myself a barbarian, incapable of un- 
derstanding the arts, and unworthy of enjoying 
them. He got up without answering me, hastily 
took up the Jordaens, and replaced it in its hiding- 
place behind the prints. 

It was a sort of dismissal ; I took leave of 
him, and went away. 

Seven o^clock . — When I come in again, I find 
my water boiling over my little lamp, and I busy 
myself in grinding my Mocha, and setting out my 
coffee things. 

The getting coffee ready is the most delicate 
and most attractive of domestic operations to one 
who lives alone : it is the grand work of a bach- 
elor’s housekeeping. 

Coffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between 
bodily and spiritual nourishment. It acts agree- 
ably, and at the same time, upon the senses and 
the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of 
delightful activity to the wits ; it is a genius who 
lends wings to our fancy, and transports it to the 
land of the Arabian Nights. 

When I am buried in my old easy-chair, my 
feet on the fender before a blazing fire, my ear 


THE CARNIVAL. 


29 


soothed by the singing of the coffee-pot, which 
seems to gossip with my fire-irons, the sense of 
smell gently excited by the aroma of the Arabian 
bean, and my eyes shaded by my cap pulled down 
over them, it often seems as if each cloud of the 
fragrant steam took a distinct form. As in the 
mirages of the desert, in each as it rises, I see 
some image of which my mind had been longing 
for the reality. 

At first the vapor increases, and its color deep- 
ens. I see a cottage on a hill-side : behind is a 
garden shut in by a whitethorn hedge, and through 
the garden runs a brook, on the banks of which I 
hear the bees humming. 

Then the view opens still more. See those 
fields planted with apple-trees, and in which I dis- 
tinguish a plow and horses waiting for their mas- 
ter ! Farther on, in a part of the wood which 
rings with the sound of the axe, I perceive the 
woodsman’s hut, roofed with turf and branches ; 
and, in the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem 
to see a figure of myself gliding about. It is my 
ghost walking in my dream ! 

The bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, 
compels me to break off my meditations, in order 
to fill up the coffee pot. I then remember that I 
have no cream ; I take my tin can off the hook 
and go down to the milkwoman’s. 

Mother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Sa- 
voy, which she left when quite young ; and, con- 


30 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


trary to the custom of the Savoyards, she has not 
gone hack to it again. She has neither husband 
nor child, notwithstanding the title they give her ; 
but her kindness, which never sleeps, makes her 
worthy of the name of mother. 

A brave creature ! Left by herself in the bat- 
tle of life, she makes good her humble place in it 
by working, singing, helping others, and leaving 
the rest to God. 

At the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts 
of laughter. In one of the corners of the shop 
three children are sitting on the ground. They 
wear the sooty dress of Savoyard boys, and in 
their hand they hold large slices of bread and 
cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the eyes 
with his, and that is the reason of their mirth. 

Mother Denis points them out to me. 

“ Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy them- 
selves ! ” said she, putting her hand on the head 
of the little glutton. 

“ He has had no breakfast,” puts in one of the 
others by way of excuse. 

“ Poor little thing,” said the milkwoman ; “ he 
is left alone in the streets of Paris, where he can 
find no other father than the All-good God ! ” 

‘‘ And that is why you make yourself a mother 
to them ? ” I replied gently. 

“ What I do is little enough,” said Mother 
Denis, measuring out my milk ; “ but every day 
I get some of them together out of the street, that 


THE CARNIVAL. 


31 


for once they may have enough to eat. Dear chil- 
dren ! their mothers will make up for it in heaven. 
Not to mention that they recall my native moun- 
tains to me ; when they sing and dance, I seem to 
see our old father again.” 

Here her eyes filled with tears. 

“ So you are repaid by your recollections for 
the good you do them ? ” resumed I. 

“Yes ! yes ! ” said she, “and by their happi- 
ness too ! The laughter of these little ones, sir, is 
like a bird’s song ; it makes you gay, and gives 
you heart to live.” 

As she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread 
and cheese, and added some apples and a handful 
of nuts to them. 

“ Come, my little dears,” she cried, “ put these 
into your pockets against to-morrow.” 

Then, turning to me — 

“ To-day I am ruining myself,” added she ; 
“ but we must all have our Carnival.” 

I came away without saying a word : I was too 
much affected. 

At last I have discovered what true pleasure 
is. After having seen the egotism of sensuality 
and of intellect, I have found the happy self-sacri- 
fice of goodness. Pierre, M. Antoine, and Mother 
Denis had each kept their Carnival ; but for the 
two first, it was only a feast for the senses or the 
mind ; while for the third, it was a feast for the 
heart. 


32 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER III. 

WHAT WE MAY LEARK BY LOOKING OUT OF 
WINDOW. 

March 3c?. — A poet has said that life is the 
dream of a shadow : he would better have com- 
pared it to a night of fever ! What alternate fits 
of restlessness and sleep ! what discomfort ! what 
sudden starts ! what ever-returning thirst ! what 
a chaos of mournful and confused fancies ! We 
can neither sleep nor wake ; we seek in vain for 
repose, and we stop short on the brink of action. 
Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hes- 
itation, and the last third in repenting. 

When I say human existence^ I mean my own ! 
We are so made that each of us regards himself 
as the mirror of the community : what passes in 
our minds infallibly seems to us a history of the 
universe. Every man is like the drunkard who 
reports an earthquake, because he feels himself 
staggering. 

And why am I uncertain and restless — I, a 
poor day-laborer in the world — who fill an obscure 
station in a corner of it, and whose work it avails 
itself of, without heeding the workman ? I will 
tell you, my unseen friend, for whom these lines 
are written ; my unknown brother, on whom the 
solitary call in sorrow ; my imaginary confidant, 


LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 


33 


to whom all monologues are addressed and who is 
but the shadow of our own conscience. 

A great event has happened in my life ! A 
cross-road has suddenly opened in the middle of 
the monotonous way along which I was traveling 
quietly, and without thinking of it. Two roads 
present themselves, and I must choose between 
them. One is only the continuation of that I have 
followed till now ; the other is wider, and exhib- 
its wondrous prospects. On the first there is no- 
thing to fear, but also little to hope ; on the other 
great dangers and great fortune. In a word, the 
question is, whether I shall give up the humble 
ofiice in which I thought to die, for one of those 
bold speculations in which chance alone is banker ! 
Ever since yesterday I have consulted with myself ; 
I have compared the two, and I remain undecided. 

Where shall I get any light — who will advise 
me ? 

Sunday, Uh . — See the sun coming out from the 
thick fogs of winter ; spring announces its ap- 
proach ; a soft breeze skims over the roofs, and 
my wallflower begins to blow again. 

We are near that sweet season of fresh green, 
of which the poets of the sixteenth century sang 
with so much feeling : 

Kow the gladsome month of May 
All things newly doth array ; 

Fairest lady, let me too 
In thy love my life renew. 


3 


34 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


The chirping of the sparrows calls me : they 
claim the crumbs I scatter to them every morning. 
I open my window, and the prospect of roofs 
opens out before me in all its splendor. 

He who has only lived on a first floor has no 
idea of the picturesque variety of such a view. 
He has never contemplated these tile-colored 
heights which intersect each other ; he has not 
followed with his eyes these gutter-valleys, where 
the fresh verdure of the attic gardens waves, the 
deep shadows which evening spreads over the 
slated slopes, and the sparkling of windows which 
the setting sun has kindled to a blaze of fire. He 
has not studied the flora of these Alps of civiliza- 
tion, carpeted by lichens and mosses ; he is not 
acquainted with the thousand inhabitants which 
people them, from the microscopic insect to the 
domestic cat — that Reynard of the roofs who is 
always on the prowl, or in ambush ; he has not 
witnessed the thousand aspects of a clear or a 
cloudy sky ; nor the thousand effects of light, 
which make these upper regions a theatre with 
ever-changing scenes ! How many times have my 
days of leisure passed away in contemplating this 
wonderful sight ; in discovering its darker or 
brighter episodes ; in seeking, in short, in this 
unknown world for the impressions of travel that 
wealthy tourists look for lower down ! 

Nine o’clock , — But why, then, have not my 
winged neighbors picked up the crumbs I have 


LOOKING OUT OP WINDOW. 


35 


scattered for them before my window ? I see 
them fly away, come back, perch upon the ledges 
of the windows, and chirp at the sight of the 
feast they are usually so ready to devour ! It is 
not my presence that frightens them ; I have ac- 
customed them to eat out of my hand. Then, 
why is this fearful suspense ? In vain I look 
around : the roof is clear, the windows near are 
closed. I crumble the bread that remains from 
my breakfast to attract them by an ampler feast. 
Their chirpings increase, they bend down their 
heads, the boldest approach upon the wing, but 
without daring to alight. 

Come, come, my sparrows are the victims of 
one of the foolish panics which make the funds 
fall at the Bourse ! It is plain that birds are not 
more reasonable than men ! 

With this reflection I was about to shut my 
window, when all of a sudden I perceived, in a 
spot of sunshine on my right, the shadow of two 
pricked-up ears ; then a paw advanced, then the 
head of a tabby-cat showed itself at the corner of 
the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying there 
in wait, hoping the crumbs would bring him some 
game. 

And I had accused my guests of cowardice ! 
I was so sure that no danger could menace them ! 
I thought I had looked well everywhere ! I had 
only forgotten the corner behind me I 

In life, as on the roofs, how many misfor- 


36 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOrHER IN PARIS. 


tunes come from having forgotten a single 
corner ! 

Ten d^clocJc . — I cannot leave my window ; the 
rain and the cold have kept it shut so long, that I 
must reconnoiter all the environs to be able to 
take possession of them again. My eyes search in 
succession all the points of the jumbled and con- 
fused prospect, passing on or stopping according 
to what they light upon. 

Ah ! see the windows upon which they for- 
merly loved to rest ; they are those of two un- 
known neighbors, whose different habits they 
have long remarked. 

One is a poor workwoman, who rises before 
sunrise, and whose profile is shadowed upon her 
little muslin window curtain far into the evening ; 
the other is a young-lady singer, whose vocal 
flourishes sometimes reach my attic by snatches. 
When their windows are open, that of the work- 
woman discovers a humble but decent abode ; 
the other, an elegantly furnished room. But to- 
day a crowd of tradespeople throng the latter : 
they take down the silk hangings and carry off 
the furniture, and I now remember that the young 
singer passed under my window this morning with 
her veil down, and walking with the hasty step of 
one who suffers some inward trouble. Ah ! I 
guess it all. Her means are exhausted in elegant 
fancies, or have been taken away by some unex- 
pected misfortune, and now she has fallen from 


LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 


37 


luxury to indigence. While the workwoman man- 
ages not only to keep her little room, hut also to 
furnish it with decent comfort by her steady toil, 
that of the singer is become the property of brok- 
ers. The one sparkled for a moment on the wave of 
prosperity ; the other sails slowly but safely along 
the coast of a humble and laborious industry. 

Alas ! is there not here a lesson for us all? 
Is it really in hazardous experiments, at the end 
of which we shall meet with wealth or ruin, that 
the wise man should employ his years of strength 
and freedom? Ought he to consider life as a 
regular employment which brings its daily wages, 
or as a game in which the future is determined 
by a few throws ? Why seek the risk of extreme 
chances ? For what end hasten to riches by dan- 
gerous roads ? Is it really certain that happiness 
is the prize of brilliant successes, rather than of 
a wisely accepted poverty ? Ah ! if men but 
knew in what a small dwelling joy can live, and 
how little it costs to furnish it ! 

Twelve o'clock . — I have been walking up and 
down my attic for a long time, with my arms 
folded and my eyes on the ground ! My doubts 
increase, like shadows encroaching more and more 
on some bright space ; my fears multiply ; and the 
uncertainty becomes every moment more painful 
to me ! It is necessary for me to decide to-day, 
and before the evening ! I hold the dice of my 
future fate in my hands, and I dare not throw them. 


38 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Three o'clock . — The sky has become cloudy, 
and a cold wind begins to blow from the west ; all 
the windows which were opened to the sunshine 
of a beautiful day are shut again. Only on the 
opposite side of the street, the lodger on the last 
story has not yet left his balcony. 

One knows him to be a soldier by his regular 
walk, his gray mustaches, and the ribbon which 
decorates his buttonhole. Indeed, one might have 
guessed as much from the care he takes of the lit- 
tle garden which is the ornament of his balcony in 
mid-air ; for there are two things especially loved by 
all old soldiers — flowers and children. They have 
been so long obliged to look upon the earth as a 
field of battle, and so long cut off from the peace- 
ful pleasures of a quiet lot, that they seem to begin 
life at an age when others end it. The tastes of 
their early years, which were arrested by the stern 
duties of war, suddenly break out again with their 
white hairs, and are like the savings of youth which 
they spend again in old age. Besides, they have 
been condemned to be destroyers for so long, that 
perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, and 
seeing life spring up again : the beauty of weak- 
ness has a grace and an attraction the more for 
those who have been the agents of unbending force ; 
and the watching over the frail germs of life has 
all the charms of novelty for these old workmen 
of death. 

Therefore the cold wind has not driven my 


LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 


39 


neighbor from his balcony. He is digging up the 
earth in his green boxes, and carefully sowing in 
the seeds of the scarlet nasturtium, convolvulus, 
and sweet pea. Henceforth he will come every 
day to watch for their first sprouting, to protect 
the young shoots from weeds or insects, to arrange 
the strings for the tendrils to climb by, and care- 
fully to regulate their supply of water and heat ! 

How much labor to bring in the desired harvest ! 
For that how many times shall I see him brave 
cold or heat, wind or sun, as he does to-day ! But 
then, in the hot summer days, when the blinding 
dust whirls in clouds through our streets, when 
the eye, dazzled by the glare of white stucco, knows 
not where to rest, and the glowing roofs reflect 
their heat upon us to burning, the old soldier will 
sit in his arbor and perceive nothing but green 
leaves and flowers around him, and the breeze will 
come cool and fresh to him through these perfumed 
shades. His assiduous care will be rewarded at 
last. 

We must sow the seeds, and tend the growth, 
if we would enjoy the flower. 

Four d* clock . — The clouds which have been 
gathering in the horizon for a long time are be- 
come darker ; it thunders loudly, and the rain pours 
down ! Those who are caught in it fly in every 
direction, some laughing and some crying. 

I always find particular amusement in these 
helter-skelters, caused by a sudden storm. It seems 


40 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


as if each one, when thus taken by surprise, loses 
the factitious character the world or habit has 
given him, and appears in his true colors. 

See, for example, that big man with deliberate 
step, who suddenly forgets his indifference made to 
order, and runs like a school-boy ! He is a thrifty 
city gentleman, who, with all his fashionable airs, 
is afraid to spoil his hat. 

That pretty lady yonder, on the contrary, whose 
looks are so modest, and whose dress is so elabo- 
rate, slackens her pace with the increasing storm. 
She seems to find pleasure in braving it, and does 
not think of her velvet cloak spotted by the hail ! 
She is evidently a lioness in sheep’s clothing. 

Here, a young man who was passing stops to 
catch some of the hailstones in his hand, and ex- 
amines them. By his quick and business-like walk 
just now, you would have taken him for a tax- 
gatherer on his rounds, when he is a young phi- 
losopher, studying the effects of electricity. And 
those school-boys who leave their ranks to run 
after the sudden gusts of a March whirlwind ; 
those girls, just now so demure, and who now fiy 
with bursts of laughter ; those national guards, 
who quit the martial attitude of their days of 
duty, to take refuge under a porch ! The storm 
has caused all these transformations. 

See, it increases ! The hardiest are obliged 
to seek shelter. I see every one rushing toward 
the shop in front of my window, which a bill an- 


LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 


41 


nounces is to let. It is for the fourth time within 
a few months. A year ago all the skill of the 
joiner and the art of the painter were employed 
in beautifying it, but their works are already de- 
stroyed by the leaving of so many tenants ; the 
cornices of the front are disfigured by mud ; the 
arabesques on the doorway are spoiled by bills 
posted upon them to announce the sale of the 
effects. The splendid shop has lost some of its 
embellishments with each change of the tenant. 
See it now empty, and left open to the passers-by. 
How much does its fate resemble that of so many 
who, like it, only change their occupation to hasten 
the faster to ruin ! 

I am struck by this last reflection : since the 
morning everything seems to speak to me, and 
with the same warning tone. Everything says : 
“ Take care ! be content with your happy, though 
humble, lot ; happiness can only be retained by 
constancy ; do not forsake your old patrons for 
the protection of those who are unknown ! ” 

Are they the outward objects which speak 
thus, or does the warning come from within ? Is 
it not I myself who give this language to all that 
surrounds me ? The world is but an instrument, 
to which we give sound at will. But what does 
it signify if it teaches us wisdom ? The low voice 
which speaks in our breasts is always a friendly 
voice, for it tells us what we are, that is to say, 
what is our capability. Bad conduct results, for 


42 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the most part, from mistaking our calling. There 
are so many fools and knaves, because there are 
BO few men who know themselves. The question 
is not to discover what will suit us, but for what 
we are suited ! 

What should I do in the midst of these experi- 
enced financial speculators? I am a poor spar- 
row, bom among the housetops, and should always 
fear the enemy crouching in the dark corner ; I 
am a prudent workman, and should think of the 
business of my neighbors who so suddenly disap- 
peared : I am a timid observer, and should call to 
mind the flowers so slowly raised by the old sol- 
dier, or the shop brought to ruin by constant 
change of masters. Away from me, ye banquets, 
over which hangs the sword of Damocles ! I am 
a country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow 
tree, and I ask nothing besides — except security. 

And why this insatiable craving for riches? 
Does a man drink more w'hen he drinks from a 
large glass ? From whence comes that universal 
dread of mediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace 
and liberty? Ah! there is the evil which, above 
every other, it should be the aim of both public 
and private education to anticipate ! If that were 
got rid of, what treasons would be spared, what 
baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and 
crime would be for ever broken ! We award the 
palm to charity, and to self-sacrifice ; but, above 
all, let us award it to moderation, for it is the great 


LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW. 


43 


social virtue. Even when it does not create the 
others, it stands instead of them. 

Six o'clock . — I have written a letter of thanks 
to the promoters of the new speculation, and have 
declined their offer ! This decision has restored 
, my peace of mind. I stopped singing, like the 
cobbler, as long as I entertained the hope of riches ; 
it is gone, and happiness is come back ! 

O beloved and gentle Poverty ! pardon me for 
having for a moment wished to fly from thee, as 
I would from Want. Stay here for ever with thy 
charming sisters. Pity, Patience, Sobriety, and 
Solitude ; be ye my queens and my instructors ; 
teach me the stern duties of life ; remove far from 
my abode the weakness of heart, and giddiness of 
head, which follow prosperity. Holy Poverty ! 
teach me to endure without complaining, to im- 
part without grudging, to seek the end of life 
higher than in pleasure, farther off than in power. 
Thou givest the body strength, thou makest the 
mind more firm ; and, thanks to thee, this life, to 
which the rich attach themselves as to a rock, be- 
comes a bark of which death may cut the cable 
without awakening all our fears. Continue to 
sustain me, O thou whom Christ hath called 
Blessed. 


44 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 

April ^th , — The fine evenings are come back ; 
the trees begin to put forth their shoots ; hyacinths, 
jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets of 
the flower-girls ; all the world have begun their 
walks again on the quays and boulevards. After 
dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to breathe 
the evening air. 

It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its 
beauty. During the day the plaster fronts of the 
houses weary the eye by their monotonous white- 
ness ; heavily laden carts make the streets shake 
under their huge wheels ; the eager crowd, taken 
up by the one fear of losing a moment from busi- 
ness, cross and jostle one another ; the aspect of 
the city altogether has something harsh, restless, 
and flurried about it. But, as soon as the stars 
appear, everything is changed ; the glare of the 
white houses is quenched in the gathering shades ; 
you hear no more any rolling but that of the car- 
riages on their way to some party of pleasure ; 
you see only the lounger or the light-hearted pass- 
ing by ; work has given place to leisure. Now 
each one may breathe after the fierce race through 
the business of the day, and whatever strength re- 
mains to him he gives to pleasure ! See the ball- 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


45 


rooms lighted up, the theatres open, the eating- 
shops along the walks set out with dainties, and 
the twinkling lanterns of the newspaper criers. 
Decidedly Paris has laid aside the pen, the ruler, 
and the apron ; after the day spent in work, it 
must have the evening for enjoyment ; like the 
masters of Thebes, it has put off all serious matter 
till to-morrow. 

I love to take part in this happy hour ; not to 
mix in the general gayety, but to contemplate it. 
If the enjoyments of others embitter jealous minds, 
they strengthen the humble spirit ; they are the 
beams of sunshine, which open the two beautiful 
flowers called trust and hope. 

Although alone in the midst of the smiling 
multitude, I do not feel myself isolated from it, 
for its gayety is reflected upon me : it is my 
own kind, my own family, who are enjoying life, 
and I take a brother’s share in their happiness. 
We are all fellow-soldiers in this earthly battle, 
and what does it matter on whom the honors of 
the victory fall ? If Fortune passes by without 
seeing us, and pours her favors on others, let us 
console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by 
saying, “ Those, too, are Alexanders.” 

While making these reflections, I was going 
on as chance took me. I crossed from one pave- 
ment to another, I retraced my steps, I stopped 
before the shops or to read the hand-bills. How 
many things there are to learn in the streets of 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Paris ! What a museum it is ! Unknown fruits, 
foreign arms, furniture of old times or other lands, 
animals of all climates, statues of great men, cos- 
tumes of distant nations ! It is the world seen in 
samples ! 

Let us then look at this people, whose knowl- 
edge is gained from the shop windows and the 
tradesman’s display of goods. Nothing has been 
taught them, hut they have a rude notion of every- 
thing. They have seen the ananas at Chevet’s, a 
palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes, sugar-canes 
selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, exhib- 
ited in the Valentine Hall, have taught them to 
mimic the dance of the bison, and to smoke the 
calumet of peace ; they have seen Carter’s lions 
fed ; they know the principal national costumes 
contained in Babin’s collection ; Goupil’s display 
of prints has placed the tiger-hunts of Africa and 
the sittings of the English Parliament before 
their eyes ; they have become acquainted with 
Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kos- 
suth, at the office-door of the “ Illustrated News.” 
We can certainly instruct them, but not astonish 
them ; for nothing is completely new to them. 
You may take the Paris ragamuffin through the 
five quarters of the world, and at every wonder 
with which you think to surprise him, he will set- 
tle the matter with that favorite and conclusive 
answer of his class — I know. 

But this variety of exhibitions, which makes 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


47 


Paris the fair of the world, does not merely offer 
a means of instruction to him who walks through 
it ; it is a continual spur for rousing the imagi- 
nation, a first step of the ladder always set up be- 
fore us in a vision. When we see them, how many 
voyages do we take in imagination, what adven- 
tures do we dream of, what pictures do we sketch ! 
I never look at that shop near the Chinese baths, 
with its tapestry hangings of Florida jessamine, 
and filled with magnolias, without seeing the for- 
est glades of the New World, described by the 
author of “ Atala,” opening themselves out before 
me. 

Then, when this study of things and this dis- 
course of reason begin to tire you, look around 
you ! What contrasts of figures and faces you 
see in the crowd ! What a vast field for the exer- 
cise of meditation ! A half-seen glance, or a few 
words caught as the speaker passes by, open a 
thousand vistas to your imagination. You wish 
to comprehend what these imperfect disclosures 
mean, and, as the antiquary endeavors to decipher 
the mutilated inscription on some old monument, 
you build up a history on a gesture or on a word ! 
These are the stirring sports of the mind, which 
finds in fiction a relief from the wearisome dull- 
ness of the actual. 

Alas ! as I was just now passing by the car- 
riage entrance of a great house, I noticed a sad sub- 
ject for one of these histories. A man was sit- 


48 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


ting in the darkest corner with his head bare, and 
holding out his hat for the charity of those who 
passed. His threadbare coat had that look of neat- 
ness which marks that destitution has been met by 
a long struggle. He had carefully buttoned it up 
to hide the want of a shirt. His face was half hid 
under his long gray hair, and his eyes closed, as 
if he wished to escape the sight of his own humili- 
ation, and he remained mute and motionless. 
Those who passed him took no notice of the beg- 
gar, who sat in silence and darkness ! They had 
been so lucky as to escape complaints and importu- 
nities, and were glad to turn away their eyes too. 

All at once the great gate turned on its hinges ; 
and a very low carriage, lighted with silver lamps, 
and drawn by two black horses, came slowly out, 
and took the road toward the Faubourg St. Ger^ 
main. I could ^ust distinguish, within, the spark- 
ling diamonds and the flowers of a ball-dress ; the 
glare of the lamps passed like a bloody streak 
over the pale face of the beggar, and showed his 
look as his eyes opened and followed the rich 
man’s equipage until it disappeared in the night. 

I dropped a small piece of money into the hat 
he was holding out, and passed on quickly. 

I had just fallen unexpectedly upon the two 
saddest secrets of the disease which troubles the 
age we live in : the envious hatred of him who 
suffers want, and the selfish forgetfulness of him 
who lives in affluence. 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


49 


All the enjoyment of my walk was gone ; I 
left off looking about me, and retired into my own 
heart. The animated and moving sight in the 
streets gave place to inward meditation upon all 
the painful problems which have been written for 
the last four thousand years at the bottom of each 
human struggle, but which are propounded more 
clearly than ever in our days. 

I pondered on the uselessness of so many con- 
tests, in which defeat and victory only displace 
each other by turns, and on the mistaken zealots 
who have repeated from generation to generation 
the bloody history of Cain and Abel ; and, sad- 
dened with these mournful reflections, I walked on 
as chance took me, until the silence all around in- 
sensibly drew me out from my own thoughts. 

I had reached one of the remote streets, in 
which those who would live in comfort and with- 
out ostentation, and who love serious reflection, 
delight to find a home. There were no shops 
along the dimly lit pavement ; one heard no 
sounds but of the distant carriages, and of the 
steps of some of the inhabitants returning quietly 
home. 

I instantly recognized the street, though I had 
only been there once before. 

That was two years ago. I was walking at 
the time by the side of the Seine, to which the 
lights on the quays and bridges gave the aspect 
©f a lake surrounded by a garland of stars ; and I 
4 


50 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


had reached the Louvre, when I was stopped by a 
crowd collected near the parapet : they had gath- 
ered round a child of about six, who was crying, 
and I asked the cause of his tears. 

“It seems that he was sent to walk in the 
Tuileries,” said a mason, who was returning from 
his work with his trowel in his hand ; “ the ser- 
vant who took care of him met with some friends 
there, and told the child to wait for him while he 
went to get a drink ; but I suppose the drink made 
him more thirsty, for he has not come back, and 
the child can not find his way home.” 

“ Why do they not ask him his name, and 
where he lives ? ” 

“ They have been doing it for the last hour ; 
but all he can say is, that he is called Charles, and 
that his father is M. Duval — there are twelve 
hundred Duvals in Paris.” 

“ Then he does not know in what part of the 
town he lives ? ” 

“ I should think not, indeed ! Don’t you see 
that he is a gentleman’s child? He has never 
gone out except in a carriage or with a servant ; 
he does not know what to do by himself.” 

Here the mason was interrupted by some of 
the voices rising above the others. 

“We can not leave him in the street,” said some. 

“ The child-stealers would carry him off,” con- 
tinued others. 

“We must take him to the overseer.” 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


51 


Or to the police-office.” 

“That’s the thing. Come, little one ! ” 

But the child, frightened by these suggestions 
of danger, and at the names of police and over- 
seer, cried louder, and drew back toward the par- 
apet. In vain they tried to persuade him ; his 
fears made him resist the more, and the most 
eager began to get weary, when the voice of a 
little boy was heard through the confusion. 

“ I know him well — I do,” said he, looking at 
the lost child ; “ he belongs to our part of the 
town.” 

“ What part is it ? ” 

“ Yonder, on the other side of the Boulevards 
— Rue des Magasins.” 

“ And you have seen him before ? ” 

“Yes, yes ! he belongs to the great house at 
the end of the street, where there is an iron gate 
with gilt points.” 

The child quickly raised his head, and stopped 
crying. The little boy answered all the ques- 
tions that were put to him, and gave such details 
as left no room for doubt. The other child un- 
derstood him, for he went up to him as if to put 
himself under his protection. 

“Then you can take him to his parents?” 
asked the mason, who had listened with real in- 
terest to the little boy’s account. 

“ I don’t care if I do,” replied he ; “ it’s the 
way I’m going.” 


52 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


“ Then you will take charge of him ? ” 

“ He has only to come with me.” 

And, taking up the basket he had put down 
on the pavement, he set off toward the postern 
gate of the Louvre. 

The lost child followed him. 

‘‘ I hope he will take him right,” said I, when 
I saw them go away. 

' “Never fear,” replied the mason ; “the little 
one in the blouse is the same age as the other ; 
but, as the saying is, ‘he knows black from 
white ’ ; poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmis- 
tress ! ” 

The crowd dispersed. For my part, I went 
toward the Louvre : the thought came into my 
head to follow the two children, so as to guard 
against any mistake. 

I was not long in overtaking them ; they were 
walking side by side, talking, and already quite 
familiar with one another. The contrast in their 
dress then struck me. Little Duval wore one of 
those fanciful children’s dresses which are expen- 
sive as well as in good taste ; his coat was skill- 
fully fitted to his figure, his trousers came down 
in plaits from his waist to his boots of polished 
leather with mother-of-pearl buttons, and his ring- 
lets were half hid by a velvet cap. The appear- 
ance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of 
the class who dwell on the extreme borders of 
poverty, but who there maintain their ground 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


53 


with no surrender. His old blouse, patched with 
pieces of different shades, indicated the persever- 
ance of an industrious mother struggling against 
the wear and tear of time ; his trousers were be- 
come too short, and showed his stockings darned 
over and over again ; and it was evident that his 
shoes were not made for him. 

The countenances of the two children were 
not less different than their dresses. That of the 
first was delicate and refined ; his clear blue eye, 
his fair skin, and his smiling mouth gave him a 
charming look of innocence and happiness. The 
features of the other, on the contrary, had some- 
thing rough in them ; his eye was quick and live- 
ly, his complexion dark, his smile less merry than 
shrewd ; all showed a mind sharpened by too 
early experience ; he boldly walked through the 
middle of the streets thronged by carriages, and 
followed their countless turnings without hesita- 
tion. 

I found, on asking him, that every day he car- 
ried dinner to his father, who was then working 
on the left bank of the Seine ; and this responsi- 
ble duty had made him careful and prudent. He 
had learned those hard but forcible lessons of ne- 
cessity which nothing can equal or supply the 
place of. Unfortunately the wants of his poor 
family had kept him from school, and he seemed 
to feel the loss ; for he often stopped before the 
print-shops, and asked his companion to read him 


54 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the names of the engravings. In this way we 
reached the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which 
the little wanderer seemed to know again : not- 
withstanding his fatigue, he hurried on ; he was 
agitated by mixed feelings ; at the sight of his 
house he uttered a cry, and ran toward the iron 
gate with the gilt points ; a lady who was stand- 
ing at the entrance received him in her arms, and 
from the exclamations of joy, and the sound of 
kisses, I soon perceived she was his mother. 

Not seeing either the servant or child return, 
she had sent in search of them in every direction, 
and was waiting for them in intense anxiety. 

I explained to her in a few words what had 
happened. She thanked me warmly, and looked 
round for the little boy who had recognized and 
brought back her son ; but while we were talking, 
he had disappeared. 

It was for the first time since then that I had 
come into this part of Paris. Did the mother con- 
tinue grateful ? Had the children met again, and 
had the happ}^ chance of their first meeting lowered 
between them that barrier which may mark the 
different ranks of men, but should not divide 
them? 

While putting these questions to myself, I 
slackened my pace, and fixed my eyes on the great 
gate, which I just perceived. All at once I saw 
it open, and two children appeared at the entrance. 
Although much grown, I recognized them at first 


LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER. 


55 


sight ; they were the child who was found near 
the parapet of the Louvre, and his young guide. 
But the dress of the latter was greatly changed : 
his blouse of gray cloth was neat, and even spruce, 
and was fastened round the waist by a polished 
leather belt ; he wore strong shoes, but made to 
his feet, and had on a new cloth cap. 

Just at the moment I saw him, he held in his 
two hands an enormous bunch of lilacs, to which 
his companion was trying to add narcissuses and 
primroses ; the two children laughed, and parted 
with a friendly good-by. M. Duval’s son did not 
go in till he had seen the other turn the corner of 
the street. 

Then I accosted the latter, and reminded him 
of our former meeting ; he looked at me for a 
moment, and then seemed to recollect me. 

“ Forgive me if I do not make you a bow,” 
said he merrily , “ but I want both my hands for 
the nosegay M. Charles has given me.” 

“ You are, then, become great friends ? ” said I. 

“ Oh ! I should think so,” said the child ; “ and 
Aow my father is rich too ! ” 

‘‘ How’s that ? ” 

“ M. Duval lent him a little money ; he has 
taken a shop, where he works on his own account ; 
and, as for me, I go to school.” 

“Yes,” replied I, remarking for the first time 
the cross which decorated his little coat ; “ and I 
see that you are head-boy ! ” 


56 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHEK IN PARIS. 


“ M. Charles helps me to learn, and so I am 
come to he the first in the class.” 

Are you now going to your lessons ? ” 

“ Yes, and he has given me some lilacs ; for 
he has a garden where we play together, and 
where my mother can always have flowers.” 

“ Then it is the same as if it were partly your 
own.” 

“ So it is ! Ah ! they are good neighbors in- 
deed ! But here I am ; good-by, sir.” 

He nodded to me with a smile, and disap- 
peared. 

I went on with my walk, still pensive, but with 
a feeling of relief. If I had elsewhere witnessed 
the painful contrast between afliuence and want, 
here I had found the true union of riches and pover- 
ty. Hearty good will had smoothed down the more 
rugged inequalities on both sides, and had opened 
a road of true neighborhood and fellowship be- 
tween the humble workshop and the stately man- 
sion, Instead of hearkening to the voice of inter- 
est, they had both listened to that of self-sacrifice, 
and there was no place left for contempt or envy. 
Thus, instead of the beggar in rags, that I had 
seen at the other door cursing the rich man, I had 
found here the happy child of the laborer loaded 
with flowers and blessing him ! The problem, so 
difficult and so dangerous to examine into with 
no regard but for the rights of it, I had just seen 
solved by love. 


COMPENSATION. 


57 


CHAPTER V. 

COMPENSATION’. 

' Sunday^ May 27th . — Capital cities have one 
thing peculiar to them : their days of rest seem 
to be the signal for a general dispersion and flight. 
Like birds that are just restored to liberty, the 
people come out of their stone cages, and joyfully 
fly toward the country. It is w^ho shall find a 
green hillock for a seat, or the shade of a wood 
for a shelter ; they gather May flowers, they run 
about the fields ; the town is forgotten until the 
evening, when they return with sprigs of bloom- 
ing hawthorn in their hats, and their hearts glad- 
dened by pleasant thoughts and recollections of 
the past day ; the next day they return again to 
their harness, and to work. 

These rural adventures are most remarkable at 
Paris. When the fine weather comes, clerks, shop- 
keepers, and workingmen look forward impatient- 
ly for the Sunday as the day for trying a few 
hours of this pastoral life ; they walk through six 
miles of grocers’ shops and public houses in the 
faubourgs, in the sole hope of finding a real tur- 
nip field. The father of a family begins the prac- 
tical education of his son by showing him wheat 
which has not taken the form of a loaf, and cab- 
bage ‘‘ in its wild state.” Heaven only knows the 


58 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


encounters, the discoveries, the adventures that 
are met with ! What Parisian has not had his 
Odyssey in an excursion through the suburbs, and 
would not be able to write a companion to the 
famous “ Travels by Land and by Sea from Paris 
to St. Cloud ” ? 

We do not now speak of that floating popula- 
tion from all parts, for whom our French Babylon 
is the caravansary of Europe : a phalanx of think- 
ers, artists, men of business, and travelers, who, 
like Homer’s hero, have arrived in their intellec- 
tual country after having seen “ many peoples and 
cities”; but of the settled Parisian, who keeps his 
appointed place, and lives on his own floor like the 
oyster on his rock, a curious vestige of the cre- 
dulity, the slowness, and the simplicity of bygone 
ages. 

For one of the singularities of Paris is, that it 
unites twenty populations completely different in 
character and manners. By the side of the gyp- 
sies of commerce and of art, who wander through 
all the several stages of fortune or fancy, live a 
quiet race of people with an independence, or with 
regular work, whose existence resembles the dial 
of a clock, on which the same hand points by 
turns to the same hours. If no other city can 
show more brilliant and more stirring forms of 
life, no other contains more obscure and more 
tranquil ones. Great cities are like the sea : storms 
only agitate the surface ; if you go to the bottom, 


COMPENSATION. 


59 


you find a region inaccessible to the tumult and 
the noise. 

For my part, I have settled on the verge of 
this region, but do not actually live in it. I am 
removed from the turmoil of the world, and live 
in the shelter of solitude, but without being able 
to disconnect my thoughts from the struggle going 
on. I follow at a distance all its events of happi- 
ness or grief ; I join the feasts and the funerals ; 
for how can he who looks on, and knows what 
passes, do other than take part ? Ignorance alone 
can keep us strangers to the life around us : self- 
ishness itself will not suffice for that. 

These reflections I made to myself in my attic, 
in the inters? als of the various “household works ” 
to which a bachelor is forced when he has no other 
servant than his own ready will. While I was 
pursuing my deductions, I had blacked my boots, 
brushed my coat, and tied my cravat : I had at 
last arrived at the important moment when we 
pronounce complacently that all is finished, and 
that well. 

A grand resolve had just decided me to depart 
from my usual habits. The evening before, I had 
seen by the advertisements that the next day was 
a holiday at Sevres, and that the china manufac° 
tory would be open to the public. I was tempted 
by the beauty of the morning, and suddenly de- 
cided to go there. 

On my arrival at the station on the left bank, 


60 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


I noticed the crowd hurrying on in the fear of 
being late. Railroads, besides many other advan- 
tages, will have that of teaching the French punc- 
tuality. They will submit to the clock when they 
are convinced that it is their master ; they will 
learn to wait when they find they will not be 
waited for. Social virtues are, in a great degree, 
good habits. How many great qualities are graft- 
ed into nations by their geographical position, by 
political necessity, and by institutions ! Avarice 
was destroyed for a time among the Lacedaemo- 
nians by the creation of an iron coinage, too heavy 
and too bulky to be conveniently hoarded. 

I found myself in a carriage with two middle- 
aged sisters belonging to the domestic and retired 
class of Parisians I have spoken of above. A few 
civilities were sufficient to gain me their confi- 
dence, and after some minutes I was acquainted 
with their whole history. 

They were two poor women, left orphans at 
fifteen, and had lived ever since, as those who 
work for their livelihood must live, by economy 
and privation. For the last twenty or thirty 
years they had worked in jewelry in the same 
house ; they had seen ten masters succeed one 
another, and make their fortunes in it, without 
any change in their own lot. They had always 
lived in the same room, at the end of one of the 
passages in the Rue St. Denis, where the air and 
the sun are unknown. They began their work 


COMPENSATION. 


61 


before daylight, went on with it till after night- 
fall, and saw year succeed to year without their 
lives being marked by any other events than the 
Sunday service, a walk, or an illness. 

The younger of these worthy workwomen was 
forty, and obeyed her sister as she did when a 
child. The elder looked after her, took care of 
her, and scolded her with a mother’s tenderness. 
At first it was amusing ; afterward one could not 
help seeing something affecting in these two gray- 
haired children, one unable to leave off the habit 
of obeying, the other that of protecting. 

And it was not in that alone that my two com- 
panions seemed younger than their years ; they 
knew so little that their wonder never ceased. 
W e had hardly arrived at Clamart before they in- 
voluntarily exclaimed, like the king in the chil- 
dren’s game, that they did not think the world was 
so great ! 

It was the first time they had trusted them- 
selves on a railroad, and it was amusing to see 
their sudden shocks, their alarms, and their cou- 
rageous determinations : everything was a marvel 
to them ! They had remains of youth within 
them, which made them sensible to things which 
usually only strike us in childhood. Poor crea- 
tures ! they had still the feelings of another age, 
though they had lost its charms. 

But was there not something holy in this sim- 
plicity, which had been preserved to them by ab- 


62 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

stinence from all the joys of life ? Ah ! accursed 
be he who first had the bad courage to attach 
ridicule to that name of Old Maid, which recalls 
so many images of grievous deception, of dreari- 
ness, and of abandonment ! Accursed be he who 
can find a subject for sarcasm in involuntary mis- 
fortune, and who can crown gray hairs with thorns ! 

The two sisters were called Frances and Mad- 
eleine. This day’s journey was a feat of courage 
without example in their lives. The fever of the 
times had infected them unawares. Yesterday 
Madeleine had suddenly proposed the idea of the 
expedition, and Frances had accepted it immedi- 
ately. Perhaps it would have been better not to 
have yielded to the temptation offered by her 
young sister ; but “we have our follies at all ages,’’ 
as the prudent Frances philosophically remarked. 
As for Madeleine, there are no regrets or doubts 
for her ; she is the life-guardsman of the establish- 
ment. 

“We really must amuse ourselves,” said she ; 
“ we do but live once.” 

And the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean 
maxim. It was evident that the fever of inde- 
pendence was at its crisis in both of them. 

And in truth it would have been a great pity 
if any scruple had interfered with their happiness, 
it was so frank and genial ! The sight of the 
trees, which seemed to fly on both sides of the road, 
caused them unceasing admiration. The meet- 


COMPENSATION. 


63 


mg a train passing in the contrary direction, with 
the noise and rapidity of a thunderbolt, made them 
shut their eyes and utter a cry ; but it had already 
disappeared ! They look round, take courage 
again, and express themselves full of astonishment 
at the marvel. 

Madeleine declares that such a sight is worth 
the expense of the journey, and Frances would 
have agreed with her if she had not recollected, 
with some little alarm, the deficit which such an 
expense must make in their budget. The three 
francs spent upon this single expedition were the 
savings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy 
of the elder of the two sisters was mixed with re- 
morse ; the prodigal child now and then turned 
back its eyes toward the back street of St. Denis. 

But the motion and the succession of objects 
distract her. See the bridge of the Val surround- 
ed by its lovely landscape : on the right, Paris 
with its grand monuments, which rise through the 
fog, or sparkle in the sun ; on the left, Meudon, 
with its villas, its woods, its vines, and its royal 
castle ! The two workwomen look from one win- 
dow to the other with exclamations of delight. 
One fellow passenger laughs at their childish won- 
der ; but to myself it is very touching, for I see 
in it the sign of a long and monotonous seclu- 
sion : they are the prisoners of work, who have 
recovered liberty and fresh air for a few hours. 

At last the train stops, and we get out. I show 


64 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the two sisters the path that leads to Sevres, be- 
tween the railway and the gardens, and they go 
on before, while I inquire about the time of re- 
turning. 

I soon join them again at the next station, 
where they have stopped at the little garden be- 
longing to the gate-keeper ; both are already in 
deep conversation with him while he digs his gar- 
den borders, and marks out the places for flower- 
seeds. He informs them that it is the time for 
hoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, 
for sowing annuals, and for destroying the insects 
on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill of her 
window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of 
air and sun, she has never been able to make 
anything grow but mustard and cress ; but she 
persuades herself that, thanks to this information, 
all other plants may henceforth thrive in them. 
At last the gate-keeper, who is sowing a border 
with mignonette, gives her the rest of the seeds 
which he does not want, and the old maid goes 
off delighted, and begins to act over again the 
dream of Perette and her can of milk, with these 
flowers of her imagination. 

On reaching the grove of acacias, where the 
fair was going on, I lost sight of the two sisters. 
I went alone among the sights : there were lotter- 
ies going on, mountebank shows, places for eating 
and drinking, and for shooting with the cross-bow. 
I have always been struck by the spirit of these 


COMPENSATION. 


65 


out-of-door festivities. In drawing-room enter- 
tainments, people are cold, grave, often listless, 
and most of those who go there are brought to- 
gether by habit or the obligations of society ; in 
the country assemblies, on the contrary, you only 
find those who are attracted by the hope of enjoy- 
ment. There, it is a forced conscription ; here, they 
are volunteers for gayety ! Then, how easily they 
are pleased ! How far this crowd of people is 
yet from knowing that to be pleased with nothing, 
and to look down on everything, is the height of 
fashion and good taste ! Doubtless their amuse- 
ments are often coarse ; elegance and refinement 
are wanting in them ; but at least they have 
heartiness. Oh that the hearty enjoyments of 
these merry-makings could be retained in union 
with less vulgar feeling ! Formerly religion 
stamped its holy character on the celebration of 
country festivals, and purified the pleasures with- 
out depriving them of their simplicity. 

The hour arrives at which the doors of the 
porcelain manufactory and the museum of pottery 
are open to the public. I meet Frances and Mad- 
eleine again in the first room. Frightened at find- 
ing themselves in the midst of such regal mag- 
nificence, they hardly dare walk ; they speak in a 
low tone, as if they were in a church. 

“We are in the king’s house,” said the eldest 
sister, forgetting that there is no longer a king in 
France. 


6 


66 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


I encourage them to go on ; I walk first, and 
they make up their minds to follow me. 

What wonders are brought together in this 
collection ! Here we see clay molded into every 
shape, tinted with every color, and combined with 
every sort of substance ! 

Earth and wood are the first substances 
worked upon by man, and seem more particularly 
meant for his use. They, like the domestic ani- 
mals, are the essential accessories of his life ; 
therefore there must be a more intimate connec- 
tion between them and us. Stone and metals re- 
quire long preparations ; they resist our first ef- 
forts, and belong less to the individual than to 
communities. Earth and wood are, on the con- 
trary, the principal instruments of the isolated be- 
ing who must feed and shelter himself. 

This, doubtless, makes me feel so much inter- 
ested in the collection I am examining. These 
cups, so roughly modeled by the savage, admit 
me to a knowledge of some of his habits ; these 
elegant yet incorrectly formed vases of the Indian 
tell me of a declining intelligence, in which still 
glimmers the twilight of what was once bright 
sunshine ; these jars, loaded with arabesques, show 
the fancy of the Arab rudely and ignorantly cop- 
ied by the Spaniard ! We find here the stamp of 
every race, every country, and every age. 

My companions seemed little interested in 
these historical associations ; they looked at all 


COMPENSATION. 


67 


witli that credulous admiration which leaves no 
room for examination or discussion. Madeleine 
read the name written under every piece of work- 
manship, and her sister answered with an exclama- 
tion of wonder. 

In this way we reached a little courtyard, 
where they had thrown away the fragments of 
some broken china. Frances perceived a colored 
saucer almost whole, of which she took possession 
as a record of the visit she was making ; hence- 
forth she would have a specimen of the Sevres 
china, which is only made for Icings! I would 
not undeceive her by telling her that the products 
of the manufactory are sold all over the world, 
and that her saucer, before it was cracked, was 
the same as those that are bought at the shops for 
sixpence ! Why should I destroy the illusions of 
her humble existence? Are we to break down 
the hedge-flowers which perfume our paths? 
Things are oftenest nothing in themselves ; the 
thoughts we attach to them alone give them value. 
To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover 
some useless reality, is to be like those learned 
men who will see nothing in a plant but the chemi- 
cal elements of which it is composed. 

On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, 
who had taken possession of me with the freedom 
of artlessness, invited me to share the luncheon 
they had brought with them. I declined at first, 
but they insisted with so much good nature, that 


68 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


I feared to pain them, and with some awkward- 
ness gave way. 

We had only to look for a convenient spot. 
I led them up the hill, and we found a plot of 
grass enameled with daisies, and shaded by two 
walnut-trees. 

Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. 
All her life she had dreamed of a dinner out on the 
grass ! While helping her sister to take the pro- 
visions from the basket, she tells me of all her ex- 
peditions into the country that had been planned, 
and put off. Frances, on the other hand, was 
brought up at Montmorency, and before she be- 
came an orphan she had often gone back to her 
nurse’s house. That which had the attraction of 
novelty for her sister, had tor her the charm of rec- 
ollection. She told the vintage harvests to which 
her parents had taken her ; the rides on Mother 
Luret’s donkey, that they could not make go to 
the right without pulling him to the left ; the 
cherry-gathering ; and the sails on the lake in the 
boat of the innkeeper. 

These recollections have all the charm and 
freshness of childhood. Frances recalls to herself 
less what she has seen than what she has felt. 
While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit 
down under a tree. Before us winds the valley 
of Sevres, its many-storied houses abutting upon 
the gardens and the slopes of the hill ; on the 
other side spreads out the park of St. Cloud, with 


COMPENSATION. 


69 


its magnificent clumps of trees interspersed with 
meadows ; above stretch the heavens like an im- 
mense ocean, in which the clouds are sailing ! I 
look at this beautiful country, and I listen to these 
good old maids ; I admire, and I am interested ; 
and time passes gently on without my perceiv- 
ing it. 

At last the sun sets, and we have to think of 
returning. While Madeleine and Frances clear 
away the dinner, I walk down to the manufactory 
to ask the hour. The merrymaking is at its height ; 
the blasts of the trombones resound from the band 
under the acacias. For a few moments I forget 
myself with looking about ; but I have promised 
the two sisters to take them back to the Bellevue 
station : the train can not wait, and I make haste 
to climb the path again which leads to the walnut- 
trees. 

Just before I reached them, I heard voices on 
the other side of the hedge. Madeleine and 
Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clothes 
were burnt, her hands blackened, and her face 
tied up with blood-stained bandages. I saw that 
she was one of the girls employed at the gun- 
powder mills, which are built higher up on the 
common. An explosion had taken place a few 
days before ; the girl’s mother and elder sister 
were killed ; she herself escaped by a miracle, and 
was now left without any means of support. She 
told all this with the resigned and unhopeful man- 


70 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


ner of one wlio has always been accustomed to 
suffer. The two sisters were much affected ; I 
saw them consulting with one another in a low 
tone : then Frances took thirty sous out of a lit- 
tle coarse silk purse, which was all they had left, 
and gave them to the poor girl. I hastened on 
to that side of the hedge ; but, before I reached 
it, I met the two old sisters, who called out to me 
that they would not return by the railway, but 
on foot ! 

I then understood that the money they had 
meant for the journey had just been given to the 
beggar ! Good, like evil, is contagious : I run to 
the poor wounded girl, give her the sum that was 
to pay for my own place, and return to Frances 
and Madeleine, and tell them I will walk with 
them. 

I am just come back from taking them home ; 
and have left them delighted with their day, the 
recollection of which will long make them happy. 

This morning I was pitying those whose lives 
are obscure and joyless ; now, I understand that 
God has provided a compensation with every trial. 
The smallest pleasure derives from rarity a relish 
otherwise unknown. Enjoyment is only what we 
feel to be such, and the luxurious man feels no 
longer : satiety has destroyed his appetite, while 
privation preserves to the other that first of earthly 
blessings, the being easily made happy. Oh, that 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


71 


I could persuade every one of this ! that so the 
rich might not abuse their riches, and that the 
poor might have patience. If happiness is the 
rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of 
it is the rarest of virtues. 

Madeleine and Frances ! ye poor old maids 
whose courage, resignation, and generous hearts 
are your only wealth, pray for the wretched who 
give themselves up to despair ; for the unhappy 
who hate and envy ; and for the unfeeling into 
whose enjoyments no pity enters. 


CHAPTER VI. 

UNCLE MAURICE. 

June 1th, four o'clock A, M . — I am not sur- 
prised at hearing, when I awake, the birds singing 
so joyfully outside my window ; it is only by liv- 
ing, as they and I do, in a top story, that one 
comes to know how cheerful the mornings really 
are up among the roofs. It is there that the sun 
sends his first rays, and the breeze comes with the 
fragrance of the gardens and woods ; there that 
a wandering butterfly sometimes ventures among 
the flowers of the attic, and that the songs of 
the industrious workwoman welcome the dawn of 
day. The lower stories are still deep in sleep, 


72 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


silence, and shadow, while here labor, light, and 
song already reign. 

What life is around me ! See the swallow 
returning from her search for food, with her beak 
full of insects for her young ones ; the sparrows 
shake the dew from their wings while they chase 
one another in the sunshine ; and my neighbors 
throw open their windows, and welcome the morn- 
ing with their fresh faces ! Delightful hour of 
waking, when everything returns to feeling and 
to motion ; when the first light of day strikes 
upon creation, and brings it to life again, as the 
magic wand struck the palace of the Sleeping 
Beauty in the wood ! It is a moment of rest from 
every misery ; the sufferings of the sick are allayed, 
and a breath of hope enters into the hearts of the 
despairing. But, alas ! it is but a short respite ! 
Everything will soon resume its wonted course : 
the great human machine, with its long strains, 
its deep gasps, its collisions, and its crashes, will 
be again put in motion. 

The tranquillity of this first morning hour re- 
minds me of that of our first years of life. Then, 
too, the sun shines brightly, the air is fragrant, 
and the illusions of youth — those birds of our 
life’s morning — sing around us. Why do they 
fly away when we are older ? Where do this sad- 
ness and this solitude, which gradually steal upon 
us, come from ? The course seems to be the same 
with individuals and with communities : at starting, 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


T3 

so readily made happy, so easily enchanted ; and 
at the goal, the bitter disappointment of reality ! 
The road, which began among hawthorns and 
primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in preci- 
pices ! Why is there so much confidence at first, 
so much doubt at last ? Has, then, the knowledge 
of life no other end but to make it unfit for happi- 
ness ? Must we condemn ourselves to ignorance 
if we would preserve hope ? Is the world and is 
the individual man intended, after all, to find rest 
only in an eternal childhood ? 

How many times have I asked myself these 
questions ! Solitude has the advantage or the 
danger of making us continually search more 
deeply into the same ideas. As our discourse is 
only with ourself, we always give the same di- 
rection to the conversation ; we are not called to 
turn it to the subject which occupies another 
mind, or interests another’s feelings ; and so an 
involuntary inclination makes us return for ever 
to knock at the same doors ! 

I interrupted my reflections to put my attic in 
order. I hate the look of disorder, because it 
shows either a contempt for details or an unapt- 
ness for spiritual life. To arrange the things 
among which we have to live, is to establish the 
relation of property and of use between them and 
us : it is to lay the foundation of those habits 
without which man tends to the savage state. 
What, in fact, is social organization but a series 


74 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


of habits, settled in accordance with the disposi- 
tions of our nature ? 

I distrust both the intellect and the morality 
of those people to whom disorder is of no conse- 
quence — who can live at ease in an Augean sta- 
ble. What surrounds us, reflects more or less that 
which is within us. The mind is like one of those 
dark lanterns which, in spite of everything, still 
throw some light around. If our tastes did not 
reveal our character, they would be no longer 
tastes, but instincts. 

While I was arranging everything in my attic, 
my eyes rested on the little almanac hanging over 
my chimney-piece. I looked for the day of the 
month, and I saw these words written in large 
letters : “ Fete Dieu ” ! 

It is to-day ! In this great city, where there 
are no longer any public religious solemnities, 
there is nothing to remind us of it ; but it is, in 
truth, the period so happily chosen by the primi- 
tive church. ‘‘ The day kept in honor of the 
Creator,” says Chateaubriand, “ happens at a time 
when the heaven and the earth declare His power, 
when the woods and fields are full of new life, and 
all are united by the happiest ties ; there is not a 
single widowed plant in the fields.” 

What recollections these words have just 
awakened ! I left off what I was about, I leaned 
my elbows on the window-sill, and, with my head 
between my two hands, I went back in thought to 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


75 


the little town where the first days of my child- 
hood were passed. 

The FUe Fieu was then one of the great 
events of my life ! It was necessary to he diligent 
and obedient a long time beforehand, to deserve 
to share in it. I still recollect with what raptures 
of expectation I got up on the morning of the 
day. There was a holy joy in the air. The 
neighbors, up earlier than usual, hung cloths with 
flowers or figures, worked in tapestry, along the 
streets. I went from one to another, by turns 
admiring religious scenes of the middle ages, 
mythological compositions of the Renaissance, 
old battles in the style of Louis XIV., and the 
Arcadias of Madame de Pompadour. All this 
world of phantoms seemed to be coming forth 
from the dust of past ages, to assist — silent and 
motionless — at the holy ceremony. I looked, al- 
ternately in fear and wonder, at those terrible 
warriors with their swords always raised, those 
beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow which 
never left the bow, and those shepherds in satin 
breeches always playing the flute at the feet of 
the perpetually smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, 
when the wind blew behind these hanging pic- 
tures, it seemed to me that the figures themselves 
moved, and I watched to see them detach them- 
selves from the wall, and take their places in the 
procession ! But these impressions were vague 
and transitory. The feeling that predominated 


76 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


over every other was that of an overflowing yet 
quiet joy. In the midst of all the floating draper- 
ies, the scattered flowers, the voices of the maid- 
ens, and the gladness which, like a perfume, ex- 
haled from everything, you felt transported in 
spite of yourself. The joyful sounds of the festi- 
val were repeated in your heart, in a thousand me- 
lodious echoes. You were more indulgent, more 
holy, more loving ! For God was not only mani- 
festing himself without, but also within us. 

And then the altars for the occasion ! the 
flowery arbors ! the triumphal arches made of 
green boughs ! What competition among the 
different parishes for the erection of the rest- 
ing-places * where the procession was to halt ! It 
was who should contribute the rarest and the 
most beautiful of his possessions ! 

It was there I made my first sacrifice ! 

The wreaths of flowers were arranged, the can- 
dles lighted, and the Tabernacle f dressed with 
roses ; but one was wanting fit to crown the 
whole ! All the neighboring gardens had been 
ransacked. I alone possessed a flower worthy of 
such a place. It was on the rose-tree given me 
by my mother on my birthday. I had watched it 
for several months, and there was no other bud to 

* The reposoirs, or temporary altars, on which the conse* 
crated elements are placed while the procession halts. 

f An ornamental case or cabinet, which contains the bread 
and wine. 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


77 


blow on the tree. There it was, half open, in its 
mossy nest, the object of such long expectations, 
and of all a child’s pride ! .1 hesitated for some 
moments. NTo one had asked me for it ; I might 
easily avoid losing it. I should hear no reproaches, 
but one rose noiselessly within me. When every 
one else had given all they had, ought I alone to 
keep back my treasure ? Ought I to grudge to 
God one of the gifts which, like all the rest, I had 
received from Him? At this last thought I 
plucked the flower from the stem, and took it to 
put at the top of the Tabernacle. Ah ! why does 
the recollection of this sacrifice, which was so 
hard and yet so sweet to me, now make me smile ? 
Is it so certain that the value of a gift is in itself, 
rather than in the intention ? If the cup of cold 
water in the gospel is remembered to the poor 
man, why should not the flower be remembered 
to the child ? Let us not look down upon the 
child’s simple acts of generosity ; it is these which 
accustom the soul to self-denial and to sympathy. 
I cherished this moss-rose a long time as a sacred 
talisman ; I had reason to cherish it always, as 
the record of the first victory won over myself. 

It is now many years since I witnessed the cele- 
bration of the Fite Dieu ; but should I again feel 
in it the happy sensations of former days ? I still 
remember how, when the procession had passed, 
I walked through the streets strewed with flowers 
and shaded with green boughs. I felt intoxicated 


78 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


by the lingering perfumes of the incense, mixed 
with the fragrance of syringas, jessamines, and 
roses, and I seemed no longer to touch the ground 
as I went along. I smiled at everything ; the 
whole world was Paradise in my eyes, and it 
seemed to me that God was floating in the 
air ! 

Moreover, this feeling was not the excitement 
of the moment : it might be more intense on cer- 
tain days, but at the same time it continued 
through the ordinary course of my life. Many 
years thus passed for me in an expansion of heart, 
and a trustfulness which prevented sorrow, if not 
from coming, at least from staying with me. 
Sure of not being alone, I soon took heart again, 
like the child who recovers its courage, because 
it hears its mother’s voice close by. Why have 
I lost that confldence of my childhood ? Shall I 
never feel again so deeply that God is here ? 

How strange the association of our thoughts ! 
A day of the month recalls my infancy, and see, 
all the recollections of my former years are grow- 
ing up around me ! Why was I so happy then ? 
I consider well, and nothing is sensibly changed 
in my condition. I possess, as I did then, health 
and my daily bread ; the only difference is, that 
I am now responsible for myself ! As a child, I 
accepted life when it came ; another cared and 
provided for me. As long as I fulfilled my pres- 
ent duties, I was at peace within, and I left the 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


79 


future to the prudence of my father ! My destiny 
was a ship, in the direction of which I had no 
share, and in which I sailed as a common passen- 
ger. There was the whole secret of childhood’s 
happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has 
deprived me of it. When my lot was intrusted 
to my own and sole keeping, I thought to make 
myself master of it by means of a long insight 
into the future. I have filled the present hour 
with anxieties, by occupying my thoughts with 
the future ; I have put my judgment in the place 
of Providence, and the happy child is changed 
into the anxious man. 

A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important 
lesson. Who knows that, if I had trusted more 
to Him who rules the world, I should not have 
been spared all this anxiety ? It may be that 
happiness is not possible here below, but on the 
condition of living like a child, giving ourselves 
up to the duties of each day as it comes, and trust- 
ing in the goodness of our heavenly Father for all 
besides. 

This reminds me of my uncle Maurice ! When- 
ever I have need to strengthen myself in all that 
is good, I turn my thoughts to him ; I see again 
the gentle expression of his half-smiling, half- 
mournful face ; I hear his voice, always soft and 
soothing as a breath of summer ! The remem- 
brance of him protects my life, and gives it light. 
He, too, was a saint and martyr here below. 0th- 


80 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


ers have pointed out the path of heaven ; he haa 
taught us to see those of earth aright. 

But except the angels, who are charged with 
noting down the sacrifices performed in secret, 
and the virtues which are never known, who has 
ever heard speak of my uncle Maurice ? Perhaps 
I alone remember his name, and still recall his his- 
tory. 

Well ! I will write it, not for others, but for 
myself ! They say that, at the sight of the Apollo, 
the body erects itself and assumes a more digni- 
fied attitude : in the same way, the soul should 
feel itself raised and ennobled by the recollection 
of a good man’s life ! 

A ray of the rising sun lights up the little table 
on which I write ; the breeze brings me in the 
scent of the mignonette, and the swallows wheel 
about my window with joyful twitterings. The 
image of my uncle Maurice will be in its proper 
place amid the songs, the sunshine, and the fra- 
grance. 

Seven clock . — It is with men’s lives as with 
days : some dawn radiant with a thousand colors, 
others dark with gloomy clouds. That of my 
uncle Maurice was one of the latter. He was so 
sickly when he came into the world, that they 
thought he must die ; but notwithstanding these 
anticipations, which might be called hopes, he con- 
tinued to live, suffering and deformed. 

He was deprived of all joys as well as of all 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


81 


the attractions of childhood. He was oppressed 
because he was weak, and laughed at for his de- 
formity. In vain the little hunchback opened his 
arms to the world ; the world scoffed at him, and 
went its way. 

However, he still had his mother, and it was 
to her that the child directed all the feelings of a 
heart repulsed by others. With her he found 
shelter, and was happy, till he reached the age 
when a man must take his place in life ; and Mau- 
rice had to content himself with that which others 
had refused with contempt. His education would 
have qualified him for any course of life ; and he 
became an octroi-clerk * in one of the little toll- 
houses at the entrance of his native town. 

He was always shut up in this dwelling of a 
few feet square, with no relaxation from the ofiice 
accounts but reading and his mother’s visits. On 
fine summer days she came to work at the door of 
his hut, under the shade of a clematis planted by 
Maurice. And, even when she was silent, her pre- 
sence was a pleasant change for the hunchback : 
he heard the clinking of her long knitting-needles ; 
he saw her mild and mournful profile, which re- 
minded him of so many courageously borne trials ; 
he could every now and then rest his hand affec- 
tionately on that bowed-down neck, and exchange 
a smile with her ! 

* The octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the entrance 
of the towns. 

6 


82 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


This comfort was soon to be taken from him. 
His old mother fell sick, and at the end of a few 
days he had to give up all hope. Maurice was 
overcome at the idea of a separation which would 
henceforth leave him alone on earth, and aban- 
doned himself to boundless grief. He knelt by 
the bedside of the dying woman, he called her by 
the fondest names, he pressed her in his arms, as 
if he could so keep her in life. His mother tried 
to return his caresses, and to answer him ; but her 
hands were cold, her voice already gone. She 
could only press her lips against the forehead of 
her son, heave a sigh, and close her eyes for ever ! 

They tried to take Maurice away, but he re- 
sisted them and threw himself on that now motion- 
less form. 

“ Dead ! ” cried he ; “ dead ! She who had 
never left me, she who was the only one in the 
world who loved me ! You, my mother, dead ! 
What then remains for me here below ? ” 

A stifled voice replied : 

“ God ! ” 

Maurice, startled, raised himself up ! Was it 
a last sigh from the dead, or his own conscience, 
that had answered him ? He did not seek to know, 
but he understood the answer, and accepted it. 

It was then that I first knew him. I often 
went to see him in his little toll-house. He mixed 
in my childish games, told me his finest stories, 
and let me gather his flowers. Deprived as he 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


83 


was of all external attractiveness, he showed him- 
self full of kindness to all who came to him, and, 
though he never would put himself forward, he 
had a welcome for every one. Deserted, despised, 
he submitted to everything with a gentle patience ; 
and while he was thus stretched on the cross of 
life, amid the insults of his executioners, he re- 
peated with Christ, “Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do.” 

'No other clerk showed so much honesty, zeal, 
and intelligence ; hut those who otherwise might 
have promoted him as his services deserved were 
repulsed by his deformity. As he had no patrons, 
he found his claims were always disregarded. 
They preferred before him those who were better 
able to make themselves agreeable, and seemed to 
be granting him a favor when letting him keep 
the humble office which enabled him to live. 
Uncle Maurice bore injustice as he had borne con- 
tempt ; unfairly treated by men, he raised his eyes 
higher, and trusted in the justice of Him who 
can not be deceived. 

He lived in an old house in the suburb, where 
many workpeople, as poor but not as forlorn as 
he, also lodged. Among these neighbors there was 
a single woman, who lived by herself in a little 
garret, into which came both wind and rain. She 
was a young girl, pale, silent, and with nothing to 
recommend her but her wretchedness and her re- 
signation to it. She was never seen speaking to 


84 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


any other woman, and no song cheered her garret. 
She w'orked without interest and without relaxa- 
tion ; a depressing gloom seemed to envelop her 
like a shroud. Her dejection affected Maurice ; 
he attempted to speak to her : she replied mildly, 
but in few words. It was easy to see that she 
preferred her silence and her solitude to the little 
hunchback’s good will ; he perceived it, and said 
no more. 

But Toinette’s needle was hardly sufficient for 
her support, and presently work failed her ! 
Maurice learned that the poor girl was in want of 
everything, and that the tradesmen refused to 
give her credit. He immediately went to them, 
and privately engaged to pay them for what they 
supplied Toinette with. 

Things went on in this way for several months. 
The young dressmaker continued out of work, 
until she was at last frightened at the bills she 
had contracted with the shopkeepers. When she 
came to an explanation with them, everything 
was discovered. Her first impulse was to run to 
Uncle Maurice, and thank him on her knees. Her 
habitual reserve had given way to a burst of deep- 
est feeling. It seemed as if gratitude had melted 
all the ice of that numbed heart. 

Being now no longer embarrassed with a se- 
cret, the little hunchback could give greater effi- 
cacy to his good offices. Toinette became to him 
a sister, for whose wants he had a right to pro- 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


85 


vide. It was the first time since the death of his 
mother that he had been able to share his life with 
another. The young woman received his atten- 
tions with feeling, but with reserve. All Maurice’s 
efforts were insufficient to dispel her gloom : she 
seemed touched by his kindness, and sometimes 
expressed her sense of it with warmth ; but there 
she stopped. Her heart was a closed book, which 
the little hunchback might bend over, but could 
not read. In truth he cared little to do so : he 
gave himself up to the happiness of being no 
longer alone, and took Toinette such as her long 
trials had made her ; he loved her as she was, and 
wished for nothing else but still to enjoy her com- 
pany. 

This thought insensibly took possession of his 
mind, to the exclusion of all besides. The poor 
girl was as forlorn as himself ; she had become 
accustomed to the deformity of the hunchback, 
and she seemed to look on him with an affection- 
ate sympathy ! What more could he wish for? 
Until then, the hopes of making himself accept- 
able to a helpmate had been repelled by Maurice 
as a dream ; but chance seemed willing to make 
it a reality. After much hesitation he took cour- 
age, and decided to speak to her. 

It was evening ; the little hunchback, in much 
agitation, directed his steps toward the work- 
woman’s garret. Just as he was about to enter, 
he thought he heard a strange voice pronouncing 


86 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


the maiden’s name. He quickly pushed open the 
door, and perceived Toinette weeping, and lean- 
ing on the shoulder of a young man in the dress 
of a sailor. 

At the sight of my uncle, she disengaged her- 
self quickly, and ran to him, crying out : 

“ Ah ! come in — come in ! It is he that I 
thought was dead : it is Julien ; it is my be- 
trothed ! ” 

Maurice tottered, and drew back. A single 
word had told him all ! 

It seemed to him as if the ground shook and 
his heart was going to break ; but the same voice 
that he had heard by his mother’s death-bed again 
sounded in his ears, and he soon recovered him- 
self. God was still his friend ! 

He himself accompanied the newly married 
pair on the road when they went away, and, after 
having wished them all the happiness which was 
denied to him, he returned with resignation to 
the old house in the suburb. 

It was there that he ended his life, forsaken 
by men, but not as he said by the Father which is 
in heaven. He felt His presence everywhere ; it 
was to him in the place of all else. When he 
died, it was with a smile, and like an exile setting 
out for his own country. He who had consoled 
him in poverty and ill health, when he was suffer- 
ing from injustice and forsaken by all, had made 
death a gain and blessing to him. 


UNCLE MAURICE. 


87 


Eight o'clock . — All I have just written has 
pained me ! Till now I have looked into life for 
instruction how to live. Is it then true that hu- 
man maxims are not always sufficient? that be- 
yond goodness, prudence, moderation, humility, 
self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth, which 
alone can face great misfortunes ? and that, if man 
has need of virtues for others, he has need of reli- 
gion for himself ? 

When, in youth, we drink our wine with a 
merry heart, as the Scripture expresses it, we 
think we are sufficient for ourselves ; strong, hap- 
py, and beloved, we believe, like Ajax, we shall 
be able to escape every storm in spite of the gods. 
But later in life when the back is bowed, when 
happiness proves a fading flower, and the affec- 
tions grow chill — then, in fear of the void and the 
darkness, we stretch out our arms, like the child 
overtaken by night, and we call for help to Sim 
who is everywhere. 

I was asking this morning why this growing 
confusion alike for society and for the individual ? 
In vain does human reason from hour to hour light 
some new torch on the roadside : the night con- 
tinues to grow ever darker ! Is it not because we 
are content to withdraw farther and farther from 
God, the Sun of spirits ? 

But what do these hermit’s reveries signify to 
the world ? The inward turmoils of most men are 
stifled by the outward ones ; life does not give 


88 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


them time to question themselves. Have they 
time to know what they are, and what they should 
be, whose whole thoughts are in the next lease or 
the last price of stock ? Heaven is very high, and 
wise men look only to the earth. 

But I — poor savage amid all this civilization, 
who seek neither power nor riches, and who have 
found in my own thoughts the home and shelter 
of my spirit — I can go back with impunity to these 
recollections of my childhood; and, if this our great 
city no longer honors the name of God with a fes- 
tival, I will strive still to keep the feast to Him in 
my heart. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE PEICE OF POWER AND THE WORTH OF FAME. 

Sunday, July — Yesterday the month dedi- 
cated to Juno (Junius, June) by the Romans 
ended. To-day we enter on July. 

In ancient Rome this latter month was called 
Quintilis (the fifth), because the year, which was 
then only divided into ten parts, began in March. 
When Numa Pompilius divided it into twelve 
months this name of Quintilis was preserved, as 
well as those that followed — Sextilis, September, 
October, Noremher, December — although these 
designations did not accord with the newly ar- 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 89 


ranged order of the months. At last, after a time 
the month QuintiliSy in which Julius Caesar was 
born, was called Julius, from whence we have 
July. Thus this name, placed in the calendar, is 
become the imperishable record of a great man ; 
it is an immortal epitaph on Time’s highway, en- 
graved by the admiration of man. 

How many similar inscriptions are there ! Seas, 
continents, mountains, stars, and monuments have 
all in succession served the same purpose ! W e 
have turned the whole world into a Golden Book, 
like that in which the state of Venice used to en- 
roll its illustrious names and its great deeds. It 
seems that mankind feels a necessity for honoring 
itself in its elect ones, and that it raises itself in 
its own eyes by choosing heroes from among its 
own race. The human family love to preserve 
the memory of the “ parvenus ” of glory, as we 
cherish that of a renowned ancestor, or of a bene- 
factor. 

In fact, the talents granted to a single indi- 
vidual do not benefit himself alone, but are gifts 
to the world ; every one shares them, for every 
one suffers or benefits by his actions. Genius is 
a lighthouse, meant to give light from afar ; the 
man who bears it is but the rock upon which this 
lighthouse is built. 

I love to dwell upon these thoughts ; they ex- 
plain to me in what consists our admiration for 
glory. When glory has benefited men, that ad- 


90 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


miration is gratitude : when it is only remarkable 
in itself, it is the pride of race ; as men, we love 
to immortalize the most shining examples of hu- 
manity. 

Who knows whether we do not obey the same 
instinct in submitting to the hand of power? 
Apart from the requirements of a gradation of 
ranks, or the consequences of a conquest, the mul- 
titude delight to surround their chiefs with privi- 
leges — whether it be that their vanity makes 
them thus to aggrandize one of their own crea- 
tions, or whether they try to conceal the humilia- 
tion of subjection by exaggerating the importance 
of those who rule them. They wish to honor 
themselves through their master ; they elevate 
him on their shoulders as on a pedestal ; they sur- 
round him with a halo of light, in order that some 
of it may be reflected upon themselves. It is still 
the fable of the dog who contents himself with 
the chain and collar, so that they are of gold. 

This servile vanity is not less natural or less 
common than the vanity of dominion. Who- 
ever feels himself incapable of command, at least 
desires to obey a powerful chief. Serfs have 
been known to consider themselves dishonored 
when they became the property of a mere count 
after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Si- 
mon mentions a valet who would only wait upon 
marquises. 

July Kthy seven o’clock p. m. — I have just now 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 91 

been up the Boulevards ; it was the opera night, 
and there was a crowd of carriages in the Rue Le- 
pelletier. The foot passengers who were stopped 
at a crossing recognized the persons in some of 
these as they went by, and mentioned their names ; 
they were those of celebrated or powerful men, 
the successful ones of the day. 

Near me there was a man looking on with hol- 
low cheeks and eager eyes, and whose black coat 
was threadbare. He followed with envious looks 
these possessors of the privileges of power or of 
fame, and I read on his lips, which curled with a 
bitter smile, all that passed in his mind. 

“ Look at them, the lucky fellows ! ” thought 
he ; “ all the pleasures of wealth, all the enjoy- 
ments of pride, are theirs. Their names are re- 
nowned, all their wishes fulfilled ; they are the 
sovereigns of the world either by their intellect 
or their power ; and while I, poor and unknown, 
toil painfully along the road below, they wing 
their way over the mountain-tops gilded by the 
broad sunshine of prosperity.” 

I have come home in deep thought. Is it true 
that there are these inequalities, I do not say in 
the fortunes, but in the happiness of men ? Do 
genius and authority really wear life as a crown, 
while the greater part of mankind receive it as a 
yoke ? Is the difference of rank but a different 
use of men’s dispositions and talents, or a real in- 
equality in their destinies ? A solemn question, 


92 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


as it regards the verification of God’s impartial- 
ity. 

July Sth, noon . — 1 went this morning to call 
upon a friend from the same province as myself, 
and who is first usher in waiting to one of our 
ministers. I took him some letters from his fam- 
ily, left for him by a traveler just come from Brit- 
tany. He wished me to stay. 

‘‘To-day,” said he, “the minister gives no 
audience : he takes a day of rest with his family. 
His younger sisters are arrived : he will take 
them this morning to St. Cloud, and in the even- 
ing he has invited his friends to a private ball. 
I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the 
day. We can dine together ; read the news while 
you are waiting for me.” 

I sat down at a table covered with newspa- 
pers, all of which I looked over by turns. Most 
of them contained severe criticisms on the last 
political acts of the minister ; some of them added 
suspicions as to the honor of the minister himself. 

Just as I had finished reading, a secretary came 
for them to take them to his master. 

He was then about to read these accusations, 
to suffer silently the abuse of all those tongues 
which were holding him up to indignation or to 
scorn ! Like the Roman victor in his triumph, he 
had to endure the insults of him who followed hig 
car, relating to the crowd his follies, his ignorance, 
or his vices. 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 93 


But, among the arrows shot at him from every 
side, would no one be found poisoned? Would 
not one reach some spot in his heart where the 
wound would be incurable ? What is the worth 
of a life exposed to the attacks of envious hatred 
or furious conviction ? The Christians yielded 
only the fragments of their flesh to the beasts of 
the amphitheatres ; the man in power gives up his 
peace, his affections, his honor, to the cruel bites 
of the pen. 

While I was musing upon these dangers of 
greatness, the usher entered hastily. Important 
news has been received : the minister is just sum- 
moned to the council ; he will not be able to take 
his sisters to St. Cloud. 

I saw, through the windows, the young ladies, 
who were waiting at the door, sorrowfully go up 
stairs again, while their brother went off to the 
council. The carriage, which should have gone 
filled with so much family happiness, is just out of 
sight, carrying only the cares of a statesman in it. 

The usher came back discontented and disap- 
pointed. 

The more or less of liberty which he is allowed 
to enjoy is his barometer of the political atmos- 
phere. If he gets leave, all goes well ; if he is 
kept at his post, the country is in danger. His 
opinion on public affairs is but a calculation 
of his own interest. My friend is almost a states- 


man. 


94 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


I had some conversation with him, and he told 
me several curious particulars of public life. 

The new minister has old friends whose opin- 
ions he opposes, though he still retains his per- 
sonal regard for them. Though separated from 
them by the colors he fights under, they remain 
united by old associations ; but the exigencies of 
party forbid him to meet them. If their inter- 
course continued, it would awaken suspicion ; peo- 
ple would imagine that some dishonorable bargain 
was going on ; his friends would be held to be 
traitors desirous to sell themselves, and he the 
corrupt minister prepared to buy them. He has, 
therefore, been obliged to break off friendships of 
twenty years’ standing, and to sacrifice attach- 
ments which had become a second nature. 

Sometimes, however, the minister still gives 
way to his old feelings ; he receives or visits his 
friends privately ; he shuts himself up with them, 
and talks of the times when they could be open 
friends. By dint of precautions they have hitherto 
succeeded in concealing this plot of friendship 
against policy ; but sooner or later the newspapers 
will be informed of it, and will denounce him to 
the country as an object of distrust. 

For whether hatred be honest or dishonest, it 
never shrinks from any accusation. Sometimes it 
even proceeds to crime. The usher assured me 
that several warnings had been given the minister 
which had made him fear the vengeance of an 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 95 

assassin, and that he no longer ventured out on 
foot. 

Then, from one thing to another, I learned 
what temptations came in to mislead or overcome 
his judgment ; how he found himself fatally led 
into obliquities which he could not but deplore. 
Misled by passion, over-persuaded by entreaties, 
or compelled for reputation’s sake, he has many 
times held the balance with an unsteady hand. 
How sad the condition of him who is in authority ! 
Not only are the miseries of power imposed upon 
him, but its vices also, which, not content with 
torturing, succeed in corrupting him. 

We prolonged our conversation till it was 
interrupted by the minister’s return. He threw 
himself out of the carriage with a handful of pa- 
pers, and with an anxious manner went into his 
own room. An instant afterward his bell was 
heard ; his secretary was called to send off notices 
to all those invited for the evening ; the ball would 
not take place ; they spoke mysteriously of bad 
news transmitted by the telegraph, and in such 
circumstances an entertainment would seem to in- 
sult the public sorrow. 

I took leave of my friend, and here I am at 
home. What I have just seen is an answer to my 
doubts the other day. Now I know with what 
pangs men pay for their dignities ; I now under- 
stand 

, “ That Fortune sells what we believe she gives.” 


96 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


This explains to me why Charles Y. aspired to 
the repose of the cloister. 

And yet I have only glanced at some of the 
sufferings attached to power. What shall I say 
of the falls in which its possessors are precipitated 
from the heights of heaven to the very depths of 
the earth ? of that path of pain along which they 
must for ever bear the burden of their responsi- 
bility? of that chain of decorums and ennuis 
which encompasses every act of their lives, and 
leaves them so little liberty ? 

The partisans of despotism adhere with reason 
to forms and ceremonies. If men wish to give 
unlimited power to their fellow man, they must 
keep him separated from ordinary humanity ; they 
must surround him with a continual worship, and, 
by a constant ceremonial, keep up for him the 
superhuman part they have granted him. Our 
masters can not remain absolute, but on condition 
of being treated as idols. 

But, after all, these idols are men, and, if the 
exclusive life they must lead is an insult to the 
dignity of others, it is also a torment to them- 
selves. Every one knows the law of the Spanish 
court, which used to regulate, hour by hour, the 
actions of the king and queen ; “ so that,” says 
Voltaire, “by reading it one can tell all that the 
sovereigns of Spain have done, or will do, from 
Philip II. to the day of judgment.” It was by 
this law that Philip III., when sick, was obliged 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 97 

to endure such an excess of heat that he died in 
consequence, because the Duke of Uzeda, who alone 
had the right to put out the fire in the royal cham- 
ber, happened to be absent. 

When the wife of Charles II. was run away 
with on a spirited horse, she was about to perish 
before any one dared to save her, because etiquette 
forbade them to touch the queen. Two young 
officers endangered their lives for her by stopping 
the horse. The prayers and tears of her whom 
they had just snatched from death were necessary 
to obtain pardon for their crime. Every one 
knows the anecdote related by Madame Campan 
of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XYI. One 
day, being at her toilet, when the shift was about 
to be presented to her by one of the assistants, a 
lady of very ancient family entered and claimed 
the honor, as she had the right by etiquette ; but, 
at the moment she was going to fulfill her duty, a 
lady of higher rank appeared, and in her turn took 
the garment she was about to offer to the queen ; 
when a third lady of still higher title came in 
her turn, and was followed by a fourth, who was 
no other than the king’s sister. The shift was in 
this manner passed from hand to hand, with cere- 
monies, courtesies, and compliments, before it came 
to the queen, who, half naked and quite ashamed, 
was shivering with cold for the great honor of 
etiquette. 

V^th, seven ci^clocJc, p. m. — O n coming home 
7 


98 


AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


this evening, I saw, standing at the door of a 
house, an old man, whose appearance and features 
reminded me of my father. There was the same 
beautiful smile, the same deep and penetrating 
eye, the same noble bearing of the head, and the 
same careless attitude. 

I began living over again the first years of my 
life, and recalling to myself the conversations of 
that guide whom God in His mercy had given 
me, and whom in His severity He had too soon 
withdrawn. 

When my father spoke, it was not only to 
bring our two minds together by an interchange 
of thought, but his words always contained in- 
struction. 

Not that he endeavored to make me feel it so : 
my father feared everything that had the appear- 
ance of a lesson. He used to say that virtue could 
make herself devoted friends, but she did not take 
pupils : therefore he was not anxious to teach 
goodness ; he contented himself with sowing the 
seeds of it, certain that experience would make 
them grow. 

How often has good grain fallen thus into a 
comer of the heart, and, when it has been long 
forgotten, all at once put forth the blade and 
come into ear. It is a treasure laid aside in a time 
of ignorance, and we do not know its value till 
the day we find ourselves in need of it. 

Among the stories with which he enlivened 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 99 

our walks or our evenings, there is one which now 
returns to my memory, doubtless because the time 
is come to derive its lesson from it. 

My father, who was apprenticed at the age of 
twelve to one of those trading collectors who call 
themselves naturalists, because they put all crea- 
tion under glasses that they may sell it by re- 
tail, had always led a life of poverty and labor. 
Obliged to rise before daybreak, by turns shop- 
boy, clerk, and laborer, he was made to bear alone 
all the work of a trade, of which his master reaped 
all the profits. In truth, this latter had a peculiar 
talent for making the most of the labor of other 
people. Though unfit himself for the execution 
of any kind of work, no one knew better how to 
sell it. His words were a net, in which people 
found themselves taken before they were aware. 
And since he was devoted to himself alone, and 
looked on the producer as his enemy, and the 
buyer as his prey, he used them both up with that 
obstinate perseverance which avarice teaches. 

My father was a slave all the week, and could 
only call himself his own on Sunday. The master 
naturalist, who used to spend the day at the house 
of an old female relation, then gave him his lib- 
erty on condition that he dined out, and at his 
own expense. But my father used secretly to 
take with him a crust of bread, which he hid in 
his botanizing box, and, leaving Paris as soon as 
It was day, he would wander far into the valley 


L. of C. 


100 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


of Montmorency, the wood of Meudon, or among 
the windings of the Marne. Excited by the fresh 
air, the penetrating perfume of the growing vege- 
tation, or the fragrance of the honeysuckles, he 
would walk on until hunger or fatigue made itself 
felt. Then he would sit under a hedge, or by the 
side of a stream, and would make a rustic feast, 
by turns on water-cresses, wood strawberries, and 
blackberries picked from the hedges ; he would 
gather a few plants, read a few pages of Florian, 
then in greatest vogue, of Gessner, who was just 
translated, or of Jean Jacques, of whom he pos- 
sessed three odd volumes. The day was thus 
passed alternately in activity and rest, in pursuit 
and meditation, until the declining sun warned 
him to take again the road to Paris, where he 
would arrive, his feet torn and dusty, but his mind 
invigorated for a whole week. 

One day, as he was going toward the wood of 
Yiroflay, he met, close to it, a stranger who was 
occupied in botanizing and in sorting the plants 
he had just gathered. He was an oldish man with 
an honest face ; but his eyes, which were rather 
deep set under his eyebrows, had a somewhat un- 
easy and timid expression. He was dressed in a 
brown cloth coat, a gray waistcoat, black breeches, 
and worsted stockings, and held an ivory -headed 
cane under his arm. His appearance was that of 
a small retired tradesman who was living on his 
means, and rather below the golden mean of Horace. 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 101 

My father, who had great respect for age, civ- 
illy raised his hat to him as he passed. In doing 
so, a plant he held fell from his hand ; the stranger 
stooped to take it up, and recognized it. 

“ It is a Deutaria heptaphylloSy'* said he ; ‘‘I 
have not yet seen any of them in these woods ; 
did you find it near here, sir ? ” 

My father replied that it was to he found in 
abundance on the top of the hill, toward Sevres, 
as well as the great Laserpitium. 

“ That, too ! ” repeated the old man more 
briskly. “ Ah ! I shall go and look for them ; I 
have gathered them formerly on the hillside of 
Robaila.” 

My father proposed to take him. The stranger 
accepted his proposal with thanks, and hastened 
to collect together the plants he had gathered ; 
but all of a sudden he appeared seized with a scru- 
ple. He observed to his companion that the road 
he was going was half way up the hill, and led in 
the direction of the castle of the Dames Royales 
at Bellevue ; that by going to the top he would 
consequently turn out of his road, and that it 
was not right he should take this trouble for a 
stranger. 

My father insisted upon it with his habitual 
good nature ; but, the more eagerness he showed, 
the more obstinately the old man refused ; it even 
seemed to my father that his good intention at 
last excited his suspicion. He therefore contented 


103 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


himself with pointing out the road to the stranger, 
whom he saluted, and he soon lost sight of him. 

Many hours passed by, and he thought no 
more of the meeting. He had reached the copses 
of Chaville, where, stretched on the ground in a 
mossy glade, he read once more the last volume 
of “Emile.” The delight of reading it had so 
completely absorbed him, that he had ceased to 
see or hear anything around him. With his cheeks 
flushed and his eyes moist, he repeated aloud a 
passage which had particularly affected him. 

An exclamation uttered close by him awoke 
him from his ecstasy ; he raised his head, and 
perceived the tradesman-looking person he had 
met before on the cross-road at Yiroflay. 

He was loaded with plants, the collection of 
which seemed to have put him into high good 
humor. 

“A thousand thanks, sir,” said he to my fa- 
ther. “ I have found all that you told me of, and 
I am indebted to you for a charming walk.” 

My father respectfully rose, and made a civil 
reply. The stranger had grown quite familiar, 
and even asked if his young brother botanist did 
not think of returning to Paris. My father re- 
plied in the aflirmative, and opened his tin box to 
put his book back in it. 

The stranger asked him with a smile if he might 
without impertinence ask the name of it. My fa- 
ther answered that it was Rousseau’s “ Emile.” 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 103 


The stranger immediately became grave. 

They walked for some time side by side, my 
father expressing, with the warmth of a heart still 
throbbing with emotion, all that this work had 
made him feel ; his companion remaining cold and 
silent. The former extolled the glory of the great 
Genevese writer, whose genius had made him a 
citizen of the world ; he expatiated on this privi- 
lege of great thinkers, who reign in spite of time 
and space, and gather together a people of willing 
subjects out of all nations ; but the stranger sud- 
denly interrupted him : 

“And how do you know,” said he mildly, 
“whether Jean Jacques would not exchange the 
reputation which you seem to envy for the life of 
one of the wood-cutters whose chimney’s smoke 
we see ? What has fame brought him except per- 
secution ? The unknown friends whom his books 
may have made for him content themselves with 
blessing him in their hearts, while the declared 
enemies that they have drawn upon him pursue 
him with violence and calumny ! His pride has 
been flattered by success : how many times has it 
been wounded by satire? And be assured that 
human pride is like the Sybarite, who was pre- 
vented from sleeping by a crease in a rose-leaf. 
The activity of a vigorous mind, by which the 
world profits, almost always turns against him 
who possesses it. He expects more from it as he 
grows older ; the ideal he pursues continually dis- 


104 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


gusts him with the actual ; he is like a man who, 
with a too-refined sight, discerns spots and blem- 
ishes in the most beautiful face. I will not speak 
of stronger temptations and of deeper downfalls. 
Genius, you have said, is a kingdom ; but what 
virtuous man is not afraid of being a king ? He 
who feels only his great powers, is — with the 
weaknesses and passions of our nature — preparing 
for great failures. Believe me, sir, the unhappy 
man who wrote this book is no object of admira- 
tion or of envy ; but, if you have a feeling heart, 
pity him ! ” 

My father, astonished at the excitement with 
which his companion pronounced these last words, 
did not know what to answer. 

Just then they reached the paved road which 
led from Meudon castle to that of Versailles ; a 
carriage was passing. 

The ladies who were in it perceived the old 
man, uttered an exclamation of surprise, and lean- 
ing out of the window repeated : 

“There is Jean Jacques — there is Rousseau ! ” 

Then the carriage disappeared in the distance. 

My father remained motionless, confounded 
and amazed, his eyes wide open, and his hands 
clasped. 

Rousseau, who had shuddered on hearing his 
name spoken, turned toward him : 

“You see,” said he, with the bitter misanthro- 
py which his later misfortunes had produced in 


PRICE OF POWER AND WORTH OF FAME. 105 


him, “Jean Jacques can not even hide himself: 
he is an object of curiosity to some, of malignity 
to others, and to all he is a public thing, at which 
they point the finger. It would signify less if he 
had only to submit to the impertinence of the idle ; 
but, as soon as a man has had the misfortune to 
make himself a name, he becomes public property. 
Every one rakes into his life, relates his most 
trivial actions, and insults his feelings ; he be- 
comes like those walls, which every passer-by may 
deface with some abusive writing. Perhaps you 
will say that I have myself encouraged this curi- 
osity by publishing my ‘ Memoirs.’ But the world 
forced me to it. They looked into my house 
through the blinds, and they slandered me ; I 
have opened the doors and windows, so that they 
should at least know me such as I am. Adieu, 
sir. Whenever you wish to know the worth of 
fame, remember that you have seen Rousseau.” 

Nine o'clock . — Ah ! now I understand my fa- 
ther’s story ! It contains the answer to one of 
the questions I asked myself a week ago. Yes, I 
now feel that fame and power are gifts that are 
dearly bought ; and that, when they dazzle the 
soul, both of them are oftenest, as Madame de 
Stael says, but “un deuil eclat ant de bonheur ! ”* 

* [’Tis better to be lowly born, 

And range with humble livers in content, 

Than to be perk’d up in a glistering grief, 

And wear a golden sorrow. 

Henry VlII.^ Act II., Scene 3.] 


106 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

MISANTHEOPY AND EEPENTANCE. 

August 3c?, nine o'clock p. m. — There are 
days when everything appears gloomy to us ; the 
world is, like the sky, covered by a dark fog. No- 
thing seems in its place ; we only see misery, im- 
providence, and cruelty ; the world seems without 
God, and given up to all the evils of chance. 

Yesterday I was in this unhappy humor. After 
a long walk in the faubourgs, I returned home, 
sad and dispirited. 

Everything I had seen seemed to accuse the 
civilization of which we are so proud ! I had 
wandered into a little by street, with which I was 
not acquainted, and I found myself suddenly in 
the middle of those dreadful abodes where the 
poor are born, languish, and die. I looked at those 
decaying walls, which time has covered with a 
foul leprosy ; those windows, from which dirty 
rags hang out to dry ; those fetid gutters, which 
coil along the fronts of the houses like venomous 
reptiles ! I felt oppressed with grief, and hastened 
on. 

A little further on I was stopped by the hearse 
of a hospital ; a dead man, nailed down in his deal 
coffin, was going to his last abode, without funer- 
al pomp or ceremony, and without followers. 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 107 


There was not here even that last friend of the 
outcast — the dog, which a painter has introduced 
as the sole attendant at the pauper’s burial ! He 
whom they were preparing to commit to the earth 
was going to the tomb, as he had lived, alone ; 
doubtless no one would be aware of his end. In 
this great battle of society, what signifies a soldier 
the less? 

But what, then, is this human society, if one 
of its members can thus disappear like a leaf car- 
ried away by the wind ? 

The hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance 
of which old men, women, and children were quar- 
reling for the remains of the coarse bread which 
the soldiers had given them in charity ! Thus, 
beings like ourselves daily wait in destitution on 
our compassion till we give them leave to live ! 
Whole troops of outcasts, in addition to the trials 
imposed on all God’s children, have to endure the 
pangs of cold, hunger, and humiliation. Unhappy 
human commonwealth ! where man is in a worse 
condition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its 
subterranean city ! 

Ah ! what then avails our reason ? What is 
the good of so many high faculties, if we are neith- 
er the wiser nor the happier for them ? Which 
of us would not exchange his life of labor and 
trouble with that of the birds of the air, to whom 
the whole world is a life of joy ? 

How well I understand the complaint of Mao, 


108 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


in the popular tales of the “ Foyer Breton,” who, 
when dying of hunger an(J thirst, says, as he looks 
at the bullfinches rifling the fruit-trees : 

‘‘ Alas ! those birds are happier than Christians; 
they have no need of inns, or butchers, or bakers, 
or gardeners. God’s heaven belongs to them, and 
earth spreads a continual feast before them ! The 
tiny flies are their game, ripe grass their corn-fields, 
and hips and haws their store of fruit. They have 
the right of taking everywhere, without paying 
or asking leave : thus comes it that the little birds 
are happy, and sing all the livelong day ! ” 

But the life of man in a natural state is like 
that of the birds ; he equally enjoys nature. 
“ The earth spreads a continual feast before him.” 
What, then, has he gained by that selfish and im- 
perfect association which forms a nation ? Would 
it not be better for every one to return again to 
the fertile bosom of ^Nature, and live there upon 
her bounty in peace and liberty ? 

August lO^A, four o'clock a. m. — The dawn 
casts a red glow on my bed-curtains ; the breeze 
brings in the fragrance of the gardens below. 
Here I am again leaning on my elbows by the 
window, inhaling the freshness and gladness of 
this first wakening of the day. 

My eye always passes over the roofs filled with 
flowers, warbling, and sunlight, with the same 
pleasure ; but to-day it stops at the end of a but- 
tress which separates our house from the next. 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 109 


The storms have stripped the top of its plaster 
covering, and dust carried by the wind has col- 
lected in the crevices, and, being fixed there by 
the rain, has formed a sort of aerial terrace, where 
some green grass has sprung up. Among it rises 
a stalk of wheat, which to-day is surmounted by 
a sickly ear that droops its yellow head. 

This poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest 
of which will fall to the neighboring sparrows, 
has carried my thoughts to the rich crops which 
are now falling beneath the sickle ; it has recalled 
to me the beautiful walks I took as a child through 
my native province, when the threshing-floors at 
the farm-houses resounded from every part with 
the sound of the flail, and when the carts, loaded 
with golden sheaves, came in by all the roads. 
I still remember the songs of the maidens, the 
cheerfulness of the old men, the open-hearted 
merriment of the laborers. There was, at that 
time, something in their looks both of pride and 
feeling. The latter came from thankfulness to 
God, the former from the sight of the harvest, 
the reward of their labor. They felt indistinctly 
the grandeur and the holiness of their part in the 
general work of the world ; they looked with pride 
upon their mountains of corn sheaves, and they 
seemed to say. Next to God, it is we who feed the 
world ! 

What a wonderful order there is in all human 
labor ! While the husbandman furrows his land, 


110 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


and prepares for every one his daily bread, the 
town artisan, far away, weaves the stuff in which 
he is to be clothed ; the miner seeks under ground 
the iron for his plow ; the soldier defends him 
against the invader ; the judge takes care that 
the law protects his fields ; the tax-comptroller 
adjusts his private interests with those of the pub- 
lic ; the merchant occupies himself in exchanging 
his products with those of distant countries ; the 
men of science and of art add every day a few' 
horses to this ideal team, which draws along the 
material world, as steam impels the gigantic trains 
of our iron roads ! Thus all unite together, all 
help one another ; the toil of each one benefits 
himself and all the world ; the work has been ap- 
portioned among the different members of the 
whole of society by a tacit agreement. If, in this 
apportionment, errors are committed, if certain 
individuals have not been employed according to 
their capacities, these defects of detail diminish in 
the sublime conception of the whole. The poor- 
est man included in this association has his place, 
his work, his reason for being there ; each is 
something in the whole. 

There is nothing like this for man in the state 
of nature. As he depends only upon himself, it is 
necessary that he be sufiicient for everything. All 
creation is his property ; but he finds in it as many 
hindrances as helps. He must surmount these ob- 
stacles with the single strength that God has giv- 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. m 

en him ; he can not reckon on any other aid than 
chance and opportunity. No one reaps, manufac- 
tures, fights, or thinks for him ; he is nothing to 
any one. He is a unit multiplied by the cipher 
of his own single powers ; while the civilized man 
is a unit multiplied by the powers of the whole 
of society. 

Yet notwithstanding this, the other day, dis- 
gusted by the sight of some vices in detail, I cursed 
the latter, and almost envied the life of the 
savage. 

One of the infirmities of our nature is al- 
ways to mistake feeling for evidence, and to 
judge of the season by a cloud or a ray of sun- 
shine. 

Was the misery, the sight of which made me 
regret a savage life, really the effect of civili- 
zation ? Must we accuse society of having cre- 
ated these evils, or acknowledge, on the contrary, 
that it has alleviated them? Could the women 
and children who were receiving the coarse bread 
from the soldier hope in the desert for more help 
or pity ? That dead man, whose forsaken state I 
deplored, had he not found, by the cares of a hos- 
pital, a coffin and the humble grave where he was 
about to rest? Alone, and far from men, he 
would have died like the wild beast in his den, 
and would now he serving as food for vultures ! 
These benefits of human society are shared, then, 
by the most destitute. Whoever eats the bread 


112 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

that another has reaped and kneaded, is under an 
obligation to his brother, and can not say he owes 
him nothing in return. The poorest of us has re- 
ceived from society much more than his own sin- 
gle strength would have permitted him to wrest 
from nature. 

But can not society give us more ? Who doubts 
it. Errors have been committed in this distribu- 
tion of tasks and workers. Time will diminish the 
number of them ; with new lights a better division 
will arise ; the elements of society go on toward 
perfection, like everything else. The difficulty is 
to know how to adapt ourselves to the slow step 
of time, whose progress can never be forced on 
without danger. 

August 14^A, six o’clock a. m. — My garret win- 
dow rises upon the roof like a massive watch- 
tower. The corners are covered by large sheets 
of lead, which run into the tiles ; the successive 
action of cold and heat has made them rise, and so 
a crevice has been formed in an angle on the right 
side. There a sparrow has built her nest. 

I have followed the progress of this aerial 
habitation from the first day. I have seen the 
bird successively bring the straw, moss, and wool 
designed for the construction of her abode ; and 
I have admired the persevering skill she expended 
in this difficult work. At first, my new neighbor 
spent her days in fluttering over the poplar in the 
garden, and in chirping along the gutters ; a fine 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. II3 

lady’s life seemed the only one to suit her. Then, 
all of a sudden, the necessity of preparing a shel- 
ter for her brood transformed our idler into a 
worker ; she no longer gave herself either rest or 
relaxation. I saw her always either flying, fetch- 
ing, or carrying ; neither rain nor sun stopped 
her. A striking example of the power of neces- 
sity ! We are not only indebted to it for most 
of our talents, but for many of our virtues ! 

Is it not necessity which has given the people 
of less favored climates that constant activity 
which has placed them so quickly at the head of 
nations? As they are deprived of most of the 
gifts of nature, they have supplied them by their 
industry ; necessity has sharpened their under- 
standing, endurance awakened their foresight. 
While elsewhere man, warmed by an ever brilliant 
sun, and loaded with the bounties of the earth, 
was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the 
midst of gifts he did not attempt to explore, here 
he was forced by necessity to wrest his food from 
the ground, to build habitations to defend him- 
self from the intemperance of the weather, and 
to warm his body by clothing himself with the 
wool of animals. Work makes him both more 
intelligent and more robust : disciplined by it, he 
seems to mount higher on the ladder of creation, 
while those more favored by nature remain on the 
step the nearest to the brutes. 

I made these reflections while looking at the 
8 


114 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


bird, whose instinct seemed to have become more 
acute since she had been occupied in work. At 
last the nest was finished ; she set up her house- 
hold there, and I followed her through all the 
phases of her new existence. 

When she had sat on the eggs, and the young 
ones were hatched, she fed them with the most 
attentive care. The corner of my window had be- 
come a stage of moral action, which fathers and 
mothers might come to take lessons from. The lit- 
tle ones soon became great, and this morning I have 
seen them take their first flight. One of them, 
weaker than the others, was not able to clear the 
edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter. I 
caught him with some difficulty, and placed him 
again on the tile in front of his house, but the 
mother has not noticed him. Once freed from 
the cares of a family, she has resumed her wan- 
dering life among the trees and along the roofs. 
In vain I have kept away from my window, to 
take from her every excuse for fear ; in vain the 
feeble little bird has called to her with plain- 
tive cries ; his bad mother has passed by singing 
and fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. 
Once only the father came near ; he looked at 
his offspring with contempt, and then disappeared 
never to return ! 

I crumbled some bread before the little orphan, 
but he did not know how to peck it with his bill. 
I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the for- 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. 115 


saken nest. What will become of him there, if 
his mother does not come back ! 

August Ibth, six o'clock . — This morning, on 
opening my window, I found the little bird dying 
upon the tiles ; his wounds showed me that he 
had been driven from the nest by his unworthy 
mother. I tried in vain to warm him again with 
my breath ; I felt the last pulsations of life ; his 
eyes were already closed, and his wings hung 
down ! I placed him on the roof in a ray of sun- 
shine, and I closed my window. The struggle of 
life against death has always something gloomy 
in it : it is a warning to us. 

Happily I hear some one in the passage ; with- 
out doubt, it is my old neighbor ; his conversation 
will distract my thoughts. 

It was my portress. Excellent woman ! She 
wished me to read a letter from her son the sailor, 
and begged me to answer it for her. 

I kept it, to copy it in my journal. Here it is : 

“ Dear Mother : This is to tell you that I 
have been very well ever since the last time, ex- 
cept that last week I was nearly drowned with 
the boat, which would have been a great loss, as 
there is not a better craft anywhere. 

“ A gust of wind capsized us ; and just as I 
came up above water, I saw the captain sinking. 
I went after him, as was my duty, and, after div- 


LI 6 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


ing three times, I brought him to the surface, 
which pleased him much ; for when we were 
hoisted on board, and he had recovered his senses, 
he threw his arms round my neck, as he would 
have done to an officer. 

“ I do not hide from you, dear mother, that 
this has delighted me. But it isn’t all ; it seems 
that fishing up the captain has reminded them 
that I had a good character, and they have just 
told me that I am promoted to be a sailor of the 
first class ! Directly I knew it, I cried out, ‘ My 
mother shall have coffee twice a day ! ’ And 
really, dear mother, there is nothing now to hin- 
der you, as I shall now have a larger allowance to 
send you. 

“ I conclude by begging you to take care of 
yourself if you wish to do me good ; for nothing 
makes me feel so well as to think that you want 
for nothing. 

“Your son, from the bottom of my heart, 

“ Jacques.” 

This is the answer that the portress dictated to 
me : 

“My good Jacquot : It makes me very happy 
to see that your heart is still as true as ever, and 
that you will never shame those who have brought 
you up. I need not tell you to take care of your 
life, because you know it is the same as my own, 
and that without you, dear child, I should wish 


MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE. II7 

for nothing but the grave ; but we are not bound 
to live, while we are bound to do our duty. 

‘‘ Do not fear for my health, good Jacques ; I 
was never better ! I do not grow 0I4 at all, for 
fear of making you unhappy. I want nothing, 
and I live like a lady. I even had some money 
over this year, and as my drawers shut very badly, 
I put it into the savings’ bank, where I have opened 
an account in your name. So, when you come back, 
you will find yourself with an income. I have 
also furnished your chest with new linen, and I 
have knitted you three new sea jackets. 

“All your friends are well. Your cousin is 
just dead, leaving his widow in difficulties. I gave 
her your thirty francs remittance, and said that 
you had sent it her ; and the poor woman remem- 
bers you day and night in her prayers. So, you 
see, I have put that money in another sort of sav- 
ings’ bank ; but there it is our hearts which get 
the interest. 

“Good-by, dear Jacquot. Write to me often, 
and always remember the good God, and your old 
mother, Phrosine Millot.” 

Good son, and worthy mother how such ex- 
amples bring us back to a love for the human 
race ! In a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may 
envy the fate of the savage, and prefer that of 
the bird to such as he ; but impartial observation 
goon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on 


118 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


examination, that in the mixed good and evil of 
human nature, the good so far abounds that we 
are not in the habit of noticing it, while the evil 
strikes us precisely on account of its being the ex- 
ception. If nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad 
as to be without its compensation or its remedy. 
What spiritual riches are there in the midst of the 
evils of society ! how much does the moral world 
redeem the material ! 

That which will ever distinguish man from the 
rest of creation, is his power of deliberate affec- 
tion and of enduring self-sacrifice. The mother 
who took care of her brood in the corner of my 
window devoted to them the necessary time for 
accomplishing the laws which insure the preserva- 
tion of her kind ; but she obeyed an instinct, and 
not a rational choice. When she had accomplished 
the mission appointed her by Providence, she cast 
off the duty as we get rid of a burden, and she re- 
turned again to her selfish liberty. The other 
mother, on the contrary, will go on with her task 
as long as God shall leave her here below : the life 
of her son will still remain, so to speak, joined to 
her own ; and when she disappears from the earth, 
she will leave there that part of herself. • 

Thus, the affections make for our species an 
existence separate from all the rest of creation. 
Thanks to them, we enjoy a sort of terrestrial im- 
mortality ; and if other beings succeed one an- 
other, man alone perpetuates himself. 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 119 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 

September 15th, eight o'clock . — This morning, 
vrhile I was arranging my books, Mother Gene- 
vieve came in, and brought me the basket of fruit 
I buy of her every Sunday. For nearly twenty 
years that I have lived in this quarter, I have 
dealt in her little fruit-shop. Perhaps I should be 
better served elsewhere, but Mother Genevieve 
has but little custom ; to leave her would do her 
harm, and cause her unnecessary pain. It seems 
to me that the length of our acquaintance has 
made me incur a sort of tacit obligation to her ; 
my patronage has become her property. 

She has put the basket upon my table, and as 
I wanted her husband, who is a joiner, to add 
some shelves to my bookcase, she has gone down 
stairs again immediately to send him to me. 

At first I did not notice either her looks or the 
sound of her voice : but, now that I recall them, 
it seems to me that she was not as jovial as usual. 
Can Mother Genevieve be in trouble about any- 
thing ? 

Poor woman ! All her best years were subject 
to such bitter trials, that she might think she had 
received her full share already. Were I to live a 
Hundred years, I should never forget the circum- 


120 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


stances which first made her known to me, and 
which obtained her my respect. 

It was at the time of my first settling in the 
faubourg. I had noticed her empty fruit-shop, 
which nobody came into, and, being attracted by 
its forsaken appearance, I made my little purchases 
in it. I have always instinctively preferred the 
poor shops ; there is less choice in them, but it 
seems to me that my purchase is a sign of sym- 
pathy with a brother in poverty. These little 
dealings are almost always an anchor of hope to 
those whose very existence is in peril — the only 
means by which some orphan gains a livelihood. 
There the aim of the tradesman is not to enrich 
himself, but to live ! The purchase you make of 
him is more than an exchange — it is a good action. 

Mother Genevieve at that time was still young, 
but had already lost that fresh bloom of youth, 
which suffering causes to wither so soon among 
the poor. Her husband, a clever joiner, gradually 
left off working to become, according to the pic- 
turesque expression of the workshops, a worshiper 
of Saint Monday, The wages of the week, 
which was always reduced to two or three work- 
ing days, were completely dedicated by him to 
the worship of this god of the Barriers,* and Ge- 
nevieve was obliged herself to provide for all the 
wants of the household. 

* The cheap wine-shops are outside the Barriers, to avoid 
the octroi^ or municipal excise. 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 121 


One evening, when I went to make some tri- 
fling purchases of her, I heard a sound of quarrel- 
ing in the hack shop. There were the voices of 
several women, among which I distinguished that 
of Genevieve, broken by sobs. On Igoking furth- 
er in, I perceived the fruit- woman with a child in 
her arms, and kissing it, while a country nurse 
seemed to be claiming her wages from her. The 
poor woman, who without doubt had exhausted 
every explanation and every excuse, was crying 
in silence, and one of her neighbors was trying in 
vain to appease the countrywoman. Excited by 
that love of money which the evils of a hard pea- 
sant life but too well excuse, and disappointed by 
the refusal of her expected wages, the nurse was 
launching forth in recriminations, threats, and 
abuse. In spite of myself, I listened to the quar- 
rel, not daring to interfere, and not thinking of 
going away, when Michael Arout appeared at the 
shop-door. 

The joiner had just come from the Barrier, 
where he had passed part of the day at the public 
house. His blouse, without a belt, and untied at 
the throat, showed none of the noble stains of 
work : in his hand he held his cap, which he had 
just picked up out of the mud ; his hair was in 
disorder, his eye fixed, and the pallor of drunken- 
ness in his face. He came reeling in, looked 
wildly around him, and called Genevieve. 

She heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed 


122 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


into tlie shop ; but at the sight of the miserable 
man, who was trying in vain to steady himself, 
she pressed the child in her arms, and bent over 
it with tears. 

The countrywoman and the neighbor had fol- 
lowed her. 

“ Come ! come ! do you intend to pay me, after 
all ? ” cried the former in a rage. 

“Ask the master for the money,” ironically 
answered the woman from the next door, point- 
ing to the joiner, who had just fallen against the 
counter. 

The countrywoman looked at him. 

“Ah ! he is the father,” returned she. “Well, 
what idle beggars ! not to have a penny to pay 
honest people, and get tipsy with wine in that 
way.” 

The drunkard raised his head. 

“ What ! what ! ” stammered he ; “ who is it 
that talks of wine ? I’ve had nothing but brandy ! 
But I am going back again to get some wine ! 
Wife, give me your money ; there are some friends 
waiting for me at the Phre la 

Genevieve did not answer : he went round the 
counter, opened the till, and began to rummage 
in it. 

“ You see where the money of the house goes ! ” 
observed the neighbor to the countrywoman; “ how 
can the poor unhappy woman pay you when he 
takes all ? ” 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL ABOUT. 123 


“ Is that my fault ? ” replied the nurse angrily. 
“ They owe it to me, and somehow or other they 
must pay me ! ” 

And letting lose her tongue, as those women 
out of the country do, she began relating at length 
all the care she had taken of the child, and all the 
expense it had been to her. In proportion as she 
recalled all she had done, her words seemed to 
convince her more than ever of her rights, and to 
increase her anger. The poor mother, who no 
doubt feared that her violence would frighten the 
child, returned into the back shop, and put it into 
its cradle. 

Whether it is that the countrywoman saw in 
this act a determination to escape her claims, or 
that she was blinded by passion, I can not say ; 
but she rushed into the next room, where I heard 
the sounds of quarreling, with which the cries of 
the child were soon mingled. The joiner, who 
was still rummaging in the till, was startled, and 
raised his head. 

At the same moment Genevieve appeared at 
the door, holding in her arms the baby that the 
countrywoman was trying to tear from her. She 
ran toward the counter, and throwing herself be- 
hind her husband, cried : 

“ Michael, defend your son ! ” 

The drunken man quickly stood up erect, like 
one who awakes with a start. 

My son ! ” stammered he; “ what son ? ” 


124 : AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


His looks fell upon the child ; a vague ray of 
intelligence passed over his features. 

“ Robert,” resumed he ; ‘‘ it is Robert ! ” 

He tried to steady himself on his feet, that he 
might take the baby, but he tottered. The nurse 
approached him in a rage. 

“ My money, or I shall take the child away ! ” 
cried she. “ It is I who have fed and brought it 
up : if you don’t pay me for what has made it live, 
it ought to be the same to you as if it were dead. 
I shall not go until I have my due, or the baby.” 

“ And what would do with him ? ” murmured 
Genevieve, pressing Robert against her bosom. 

“ Take it to the Foundling ! ” replied the coun- 
trywoman harshly; “the hospital is a better 
mother than you are, for it pays for the food of 
its little ones.” 

At the word “ Foundling,” Genevieve had ex- 
claimed aloud in horror. With her arms wound 
round her son, whose head she hid in her bosom, 
and her two hands spread over him, she had re- 
treated to the wall, and remained with her back 
against it, like a lioness defending her young ones. 
The neighbor and I contemplated this scene, with- 
out knowing how we could interfere. As for 
Michael, he looked at us by turns, making a visi- 
ble effort to comprehend it all. When his eye 
rested upon Genevieve and the child, it lit up with 
a gleam of pleasure ; but when he turned toward 
us, he again became stupid and hesitating. 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 125 


At last, apparently making a prodigious effort, 
he cried out, “ W ait ! ” 

And, going to a tub full of water, he plunged 
his face into it several times. 

Every eye was turned upon him ; the country^ 
woman herself seemed astonished. At length he 
raised his dripping head. This ablution had part- 
ly dispelled his drunkenness ; he looked at us for a 
moment, then he turned to Genevieve, and his 
face brightened up. 

“ Robert ! ” cried he, going up to the child, 
and taking him in his arms. “ Ah ! give him me, 
wife ; I must look at him.” 

The mother seemed to give up his son to him 
with reluctance, and stayed before him with her 
arms extended, as if she feared the child would 
have a . fall. The nurse began again in her turn 
^■'O speak, and renewed her claims, this time threat- 
ening to appeal to law. At first Michael listened 
to he*- attentively, and when he comprehended 
her meaning, he gave the child back to its mother. 

“ How much do we owe you ? ” asked he. 

The countrywoman began to reckon up the 
different expenses, which amounted to nearly thirty 
francs. The joiner felt to the bottom of his pock- 
ets, but could find nothing. His forehead became 
contracted by frowns ; low curses began to escape 
him. All of a sudden he rummaged in his breast, 
drew forth a largo watch, and holding it up above 
his head — 


126 an attic PHILOSOPHEK in PARIS. 


“ Here it is — ^here’s your money ! ” cried he 
with a joyful laugh ; ‘‘ a watch, number one ! I 
always said it would keep for a drink on a dry 
day ; but it is not I who will drink it, hut the 
young one. Ah ! ah ! ah ! go and sell it for me, 
neighbor, and if that is not enough, I have my 
earrings. Eh ! Genevieve, take them olf for me *, 
the earrings will square all ! They shall not say 
you have been disgraced on account of the child 
— no, not even if I must pledge a hit of my flesh ! 
My watch, my earrings, and my ring — get rid of 
all of them for me at the goldsmith’s ; pay the 
woman, and let the little fool go to sleep. Give 
him me, Genevieve ; I will put him to bed.” 

And, taking the baby from the arms of his 
mother, he carried him with a firm step to his 
cradle. 

It was easy to perceive the change which took 
place in Michael from this day. He cut all his 
old drinking acquaintances. He went early every 
morning to his work, and returned regularly in 
the evening to finish the day with Genevieve and 
Robert. Very soon he would not leave them at 
all, and he hired a place near the fruit-shop, and 
worked in it on his own account. 

They would soon have been able to live in 
comfort, had it not been for the expenses which 
the child required. Everything was given up to 
his education. He had gone through the regular 
school training, had studied mathematics, draw* 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL ABOUT. 127 


ing, and the carpenter’s trade, and had only be- 
gun to work a few months ago. Till now, they 
had been exhausting every resource which their 
laborious industry could provide to push him for- 
ward in his business ; but, happily, all these ex- 
ertions had not proved useless : the seed had 
brought forth its fruits, and the days of harvest 
were close by. 

While I was thus recalling these remembrances 
to my mind, Michael had come in, and was oc- 
cupied in fixing shelves where they were wanted. 

During the time I was writing the notes of 
my journal, I was also scrutinizing the joiner. 

The excesses of his youth and the labor of his 
manhood have deeply marked his face ; his hair 
is thin and gray, his shoulders stooping, his legs 
shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of 
weight in his whole being. His very features have 
an expression of sorrow and despondency. He 
answered my questions by monosyllables, and like 
a man who wishes to avoid conversation. From 
whence is this dejection, when one would think he 
had all he could wish for ? I should like to know ! 

Ten o’clock . — Michael is just gone down-stairs 
to look for a tool he has forgotten. I have at last 
succeeded in drawing from him the secret of his 
and Genevieve’s sorrow. Their son Hobert is the 
cause of it ! 

Hot that he has turned out ill after all their 
care — not that he is idle or dissipated ; but both 


128 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


were in hopes he would never leave them any 
more. The presence of the young man was to 
have renewed and made glad their lives once more ; 
his mother counted the days, his father prepared 
everything to receive their dear associate in their 
toils ; and at the moment when they were thus 
about to be repaid for all their sacrifices, Robert 
had suddenly informed them that he had just en- 
gaged himself to a contractor at Versailles. 

Every remonstrance and every prayer were use- 
less ; he brought forward the necessity of initiat- 
ing himself into all the details of an important 
contract, the facilities he should have in his new 
position of improving himself in his trade, and 
the hopes he had of turning his knowledge to ad- 
\^antage. At last, when his mother, having come 
to the end of her arguments, began to cry, he 
hastily kissed her, and went away that he might 
avoid any further remonstrances. 

He had been absent a year, and there was no- 
thing to give them hopes of his return. His parents 
hardly saw him once a month, and then he only 
stayed a few moments with them. 

“ I have been punished where I had hoped to 
be rewarded,” Michael said to me just now. “ I 
had wished for a saving and industrious son, and 
God has given me an ambitious and avaricious 
one ! I had always said to myself that when 
once he was grown up we should have him always 
with us, to recall our youth and to enliven our 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 129 


hearts. His mother was always thinking of get- 
ting him married, and having children again to 
care for. You know women always will busy 
themselves about others. As for me, I thought 
of him working near my bench, and singing his 
new songs ; for he has learnt music, and is one of 
the best singers at the Orpheon. A dream, sir, 
truly ! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to 
flight, and remembers neither father nor mother. 
Yesterday, for instance, was the day we expected 
him ; he should have come to supper with us. No 
Robert to-day either ! He has had some plan to 
finish, or some bargain to arrange, and his old 
parents are put down last in the accounts, after 
the customers and the joiner’s work. Ah ! if I 
could have guessed how it would have turned out ! 
Fool ! to have sacrificed my likings and my money, 
for nearly twenty years, to the education of a 
thankless son ! Was it for this I took the trouble 
to cure myself of drinking, to break with my 
friends, to become, an example to the neighbor- 
hood? The jovial good fellow has made a goose 
of himself. Oh ! if I had to begin again ! No, 
no ! you see women and children are our bane. 
They soften our hearts ; they lead us a life of 
hope and affection ; we pass a quarter of our lives 
in fostering the growth of a grain of corn which 
is to be everything to us in our old age, and when 
the harvest-time comes — good night, the ear is 

empty ! ” 

9 


130 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


While he was speaking, Michael’s voice be- 
came hoarse, his eye fierce, and his lips quivered. 
I wished to answer him, but I could only think of 
commonplace consolations, and I remained silent. 
The joiner pretended he wanted a tool, and left 
me. 

Poor father ! Ah ! I know those moments 
of temptation when virtue has failed to reward 
us, and we regret having obeyed her ! Who has 
not felt this weakness in hours of trial, and who 
has not uttered, at least once, the mournful excla- 
mation of Brutus ? 

But if virtue is only a word, what is there then 
in life which is true and real ? No, I will not be- 
lieve that goodness is in vain ! It does not al- 
ways give the happiness we had hoped for, but it 
brings some other. In the world everything is 
ruled by order, and has its proper and necessary 
consequences, and virtue can not be the sole ex- 
ception to the general law. If it had been preju- 
dicial to those who practice it, experience would 
have avenged them ; but experience has, on the 
contrary, made it more universal and more holy. 
We only accuse it of being a faithless debtor be- 
cause we demand an immediate payment, and one 
apparent to our senses. W e always consider life as 
a fairy tale, in which every good action must be re- 
warded by a visible wonder. We do not accept 
as payment a peaceful conscience, self -content, or 
a good name among men — treasures that are more 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 131 


precious than any other, but the value of which we 
do not feel till after we have lost them ! 

Michael is come back, and returned to his 
work. His son had not yet arrived. 

By telling me of his hopes and his grievous 
disappointments, he became excited ; he unceas- 
ingly went over again the same subject, always 
adding something to his griefs. He has just 
wound up his confidential discourse by speaking 
to me of a joiner’s business which he had hoped 
to buy, and work to good account with Robert’s 
help. The present owner had made a fortune by 
it, and, after thirty years of business, he was 
thinking of retiring to one of the ornamental cot- 
tages in the outskirts of the city, a usual retreat 
for the frugal and successful working man. Mi- 
chael had not indeed the two thousand francs 
which must be paid down ; but perhaps he could 
have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Robert’s 
presence would have been a security for him, for 
the young man could not fail to insure the pros- 
perity of a workshop ; besides science and skill, 
he had the power of invention and bringing to 
perfection. His father had discovered among his 
drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had 
occupied his thoughts for a long time ; and he 
even suspected him of having engaged himself to 
the Versailles contractor for the very purpose of 
executing it. The youth was tormented by this 
spirit of invention, which took possession of all 


132 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


his thoughts, and, while devoting his mind to 
study, he had no time to listen to his feelings. 

Michael told me all this with a mixed feeling 
of pride and vexation. I saw he was proud of 
the son he was abusing, and that his very pride 
made him more sensible of that son’s neglect. 

Six o’clock p. M. — I have just finished a happy 
day. How many events have happened within a 
few hours, and what a change for Genevieve and 
Michael ! 

He had just finished fixing the shelves, and 
telling me of his son, while I laid the cloth for 
my breakfast. 

Suddenly we heard hurried steps in the pas- 
sage, the door opened, and Genevieve entered 
with Robert. 

The joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but 
he repressed it immediately, as if he wished to 
keep up the appearance of displeasure. 

The young man did not appear to notice it, 
but threw himself into his arms in an open-heart- 
ed manner, which surprised me. Genevieve, whose 
face shone with happiness, seemed to wish to speak, 
and to restrain herself with difficulty. 

I told Robert I was glad to see him, and he 
answered me with ease and civility. 

‘‘I expected you yesterday,” said Michael 
Arout rather drily. 

‘‘ Forgive me, father,” replied the young work- 
man, “ but I had business at St. Germain’s. I was 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. 133 


not able to come back till it was very late, and 
then the master kept me.” 

The joiner looked at his son sideways, and 
then took up his hammer again. 

“ All right,” muttered he in a grumbling tone ; 
“ when we are with other people we must do as 
they wish ; but there are some who would like 
better to eat brown bread with their own knife 
than partridges with the silver fork of a mas- 
ter.” 

“ And I am one of those, father,” replied Rob- 
ert merrily ; “ but, as the proverb says, you ynust 
shell the peas before you can eat them. It was 
necessary that I should first work in a great work- 
shop — ” 

‘‘ To go on with your plan of the staircase,” 
interrupted Michael, ironically. 

“ You must now say M. Raymond’s plan, fa- 
ther,” replied Robert, smiling. 

“ Why?” 

“Because I have sold it to him.” 

The joiner, who was planing a board, turned 
round quickly. 

“ Sold it ! ” cried he, with sparkling eyes. 

“ For the reason that I was not rich enough to 
give it him.” 

Michael threw down the board and tool. 

“ There he is again ! ” resumed he, angrily ; 
“ his good genius puts an idea into his head which 
would have made him known, and he goes and 


134 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


sells it to a rich man, who will take the honor of 
it himself.” 

“ Well, what harm is there done ? ” asked Gen- 
evieve. 

“ What harm ! ” cried the joiner, in a passion. 
“You understand nothing about it — you are a 
woman ; but he — he knows well that a true work- 
man never gives up his own inventions for money, 
no more than a soldier would give up his cross. 
That is his glory ; he is bound to keep it for the 
honor it does him ! Ah ! thunder ! if I had ever 
made a discovery, rather than put it up at auc- 
tion I would have sold one of my eyes ! Don’t 
you see that a new invention is like a child to a 
workman ? He takes care of it, he brings it up, he 
makes a way for it in the world, and it is only 
poor creatures who sell it.” 

Robert colored a little. 

“You will think differently, father,” said he, 
“ when you know why I sold my plan.” 

“Yes. and you will thank him for it,” added 
Genevieve, who could no longer keep silence. 

“ Never ! ” replied Michael. 

“ But, wretched man ! ” cried she, “ he only 
sold it for our sakes ! ” 

The joiner looked at his wife and son with 
astonishment. It was necessary to come to an ex- 
planation. The latter related how he had entered 
into a negotiation with Master Benoit, who had 
positively refused to sell his business unless one 


THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT. I35 


half of the two thousand francs were first paid 
down. It was in the hopes of obtaining this sum 
that he had gone to work with the contractor at 
Versailles ; he had had an opportunity of trying 
his invention, and of finding a purchaser. Thanks 
to the money he received for it, he had just con- 
cluded the bargain with Benoit, and had brought 
his father the key of the new work-yard. 

This explanation was given by the young 
workman with so much modesty and simplicity 
that I was quite affected by it. Genevieve cried ; 
Michael pressed his son to his heart, and in a long 
embrace he seemed to ask his pardon for having 
unjustly accused him. 

All was now explained with honor to Robert. 
The conduct which his parents had ascribed to in- 
difference really sprang from affection ; he had 
neither obeyed the voice of ambition nor of ava- 
rice, nor even the nobler inspiration of inventive 
genius ; his whole motive and single aim had been 
the happiness of Genevieve and Michael. The 
day for proving his gratitude had come, and he 
had returned them sacrifice for sacrifice ! 

After the explanations and exclamations of joy 
were over, all three were about to leave me ; but 
the cloth being laid, I added three more places, 
and kept them to breakfast. 

The meal was prolonged : the fare was only 
tolerable ; but the overfiowings of affection made 
it delicious. Never had I better understood the 


136 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 

unspeakable charm of family love. What calm 
enjoyment in that happiness which is always shared 
with others ; in that community of interests which 
unites such various feelings ; in that association 
of existences which forms one single being of so 
many ! What is man without those home affec- 
tions, which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in 
the earth, and permit him to imbibe all the juices 
of life ? Energy, happiness — does it not all come 
from them ? Without family life where would 
man learn to love, to associate, to deny himself ? 
A community in little, is it not this which teaches 
us how to live in the great one ? Such is the holi- 
ness of home, that to express our relation with 
God, we have been obliged to borrow the words 
invented for our family life. Men have named 
themselves the sons of a heavenly Father! 

Ah ! let us carefully preserve these chains of 
domestic union ; do not let us unbind the human 
sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of 
chance and of the winds ; but let us rather en- 
large this holy law ; let us carry the principles 
and the habits of home beyond its bounds ; and, 
if it may be, let us realize the prayer of the Apos- 
tle of the Gentiles when he exclaimed to the new- 
born children of Christ : “ Be ye like-minded, 
having the same love, being of one accord, of one 
mind.” * 


Philippians, ii. 2. 


OUR COUNTRY. 


137 


CHAPTER X. 

OUR COUNTRY. 

October 12^A, secen o’clock a. m. — The nights 
are already become cold and long ; the sun, shin- 
ing through my curtains, no more wakens me long 
before the hour for work ; and even when my 
eyes are open, the pleasant warmth of the bed 
keeps me fast under my counterpane. Every 
morning there begins a long argument between 
my activity and my indolence ; and, snugly 
wrapped up to the eyes, I wait like the Gascon, 
until they have succeeded in coming to an agree- 
ment. 

This morning, however, a light, which shone 
from my door upon my pillow, awoke me earlier 
than usual. In vain I turned on my side ; the 
persevering light, like a victorious enemy, pur- 
sued me into every position. At last, quite out 
of patience, I sat up and hurled my nightcap to 
the foot of the bed ! 

(I will observe, by way of parenthesis, that the 
various evolutions of this pacific head-gear seem 
to have been, from the remotest time, symbols of 
the vehement emotions of the mind ; for our 
language has borrowed its most common images 
from them. Thus we say : Mettre son bonnet de 


138 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


travers / jeter son bonnet par-dessus les moulins y 
avoir la tete prhs du bonnet^ etc.*) 

But be this as it may, I got up in a very bad 
humor, grumbling at my new neighbor, who took 
it into his head to be wakeful when I wished to 
sleep. We are all made thus ; we do not under- 
stand that others may live on their own account. 
Each one of us is like the earth according to the 
old system of Ptolemy, and thinks he can have 
the whole universe revolve round himself. On 
this point, to make use of the metaphor alluded to : 
Tons les hommes ont la tete dans le meme bonnet. \ 
I had for the time being, as I have already 
said, thrown mine to the other end of my bed ; 
and I slowly disengaged my legs from the warm 
bed-clothes, while making a host of evil reflections 
upon the inconvenience of having neighbors. 

For more than a month I had not had to com- 
plain of those whom chance had given me ; most 
of them only came in to sleep, and went away 
again on rising. I was almost always alone on 
this top story — alone with the clouds and the 
sparrows ! 

But at Paris nothing lasts : the current of life 
carries us along, like the seaweed torn from the 
rock : the houses are vessels which take mere pas- 

* To be in a bad humor. 

To brava the opinions of the world. 

To be angry about a trifle. 

f Said of those who are of the same opinions and tastes. 


OUR COUNTRY. 


139 


sengers. How many different faces have I already 
seen pass along the landing-place belonging to 
our attics ! How many companions of a few days 
have disappeared for ever ! Some are lost in that 
medley of the living which whirls continually un- 
der the scourge of necessity, and others in that 
resting-place of the dead, who sleep under the 
hand of God ! 

Peter the bookbinder is one of these last. 
Wrapped up in selfishness, he lived alone and 
friendless, and he died as he had lived. His loss 
was neither mourned by any one, nor disarranged 
anything in the world ; there was merely a ditch 
filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in 
our house. 

It is the same which my new neighbor has in- 
habited for the last few days. 

To say truly (now that I am quite awake, and 
my ill humor is gone to join my nightcap) — to say 
truly, this new neighbor, although rising earlier 
than suits my idleness, is not the less a very good 
man : he carries his misfortunes, as few know 
how to carry their good fortunes, with cheerful- 
ness and moderation. 

But fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chau- 
four is but the wreck of a man. In the place of one 
of his arms hangs an empty sleeve ; his left leg is 
made by the turner, and he drags the right along 
with difiiculty ; but above these ruins rises a calm 
and happy face. While looking upon his counte- 


140 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


nance, radiant with a serene energy, while listen- 
ing to his voice, the tone of which has, so to speak, 
the accent of goodness, we see that the soul has 
remained entire in the half destroyed covering. 
The fortress is a little damaged, as Father Chau- 
four says, hut the garrison is quite hearty. 

Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent 
man, the more I reproach myself for the sort of 
malediction I bestowed on him when I awoke. 

We are generally too indulgent in our secret 
wrongs toward our neighbor. All ill will which 
does not pass the region of thought seems innocent 
to us, and, with our clumsy justice, we excuse with- 
out examination the sin which does not betray 
itself by action ! 

But are we then only bound to others by the 
enforcement of laws ? Besides these external re- 
lations, is there not a real relation of feeling be- 
tween men ? Do we not owe to all those who live 
under the same heaven as ourselves the aid not 
only of our acts but of our purposes ? Ought not 
every human life to be to us like a vessel that we 
accompany with our prayers for a happy voyage ? 
It is not enough that men do not harm one an- 
other ; they must also help and love one another ! 
The papal benediction, Urhi et orhi! should be the 
constant cry from all hearts. To condemn him who 
does not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a 
passing thought, is to break the great law, that 
which has established the union of souls here be- 


OUR COUNTRY. 


141 


low, and to whicii Christ has given the sweet name 
of charity. 

These thoughts came into my mind as I fin- 
ished dressing, and I said to myself that Father 
Chaufour had a right to a reparation from me. 
To make amends for the feeling of ill will I had 
against him just now, I owed him some explicit 
proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune 
in his room; he was at work, and I determined 
that I would make the first neighborly call. 

Eight o'clock p. m. — I found Father Chaufour 
at a table lighted by a little smoky lamp, without 
a fire, although it is already cold, and making large 
pasteboard boxes ; he was humming a popular 
song in a low tone. I had hardly entered the room 
when he uttered an exclamation of surprise and 
pleasure. 

“ Eh ! is it you, neighbor ? Come in, then ! I 
did not think you got up so early, so I put a dam- 
per on my music ; I was afraid of waking you.” 

Excellent man ! while I was sending him to 
the devil he was putting himself out of his way 
for me ! 

This thought touched me, and I paid my com- 
pliments on his having become my neighbor with 
a warmth which opened his heart. 

Faith ! you seem to me to have the look of 
a good Christian,” said he in a voice of soldierlike 
cordiality, and shaking me by the hand. “ I do not 
like those people who look on a landing-place as a 


X42 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 

frontier line, and treat their neighbors as if they 
were Cossacks. When men snuff the same air, 
and speak the same lingo, they are not meant to 
turn their backs to each other. Sit down there, 
neighbor ; I don’t mean to order you ; only 
take care of the stool ; it has but three legs, 
and we must put good will in the place of the 
fourth.” 

“ It seems that that is a treasure which there is 
no want of here,” I observed. 

“ Good will ! ” repeated Chaufour ; “ that is all 
my mother left me, and I take it no son has re- 
ceived a better inheritance. Therefore they used 
to call me Mr. Content in the batteries.” 

“ You are a soldier, then ? ” 

‘‘I served in the Third Artillery under the 
Republic, and afterward in the Guard, through 
all the commotions. I was at Jemappes and at 
Waterloo ; so I was at the christening and at the 
burial of our glory, as one may say ! ” 

I looked at him with astonishment. 

“ And how old were you, then, at Jemappes ? ” 
asked I. 

“ Somewhere about fifteen,” said he. 

“How came you to think of being a soldier so 
early ? ” 

“ I did not really think about it. I then worked 
at toy making, and never dreamt that France could 
ask me for anything else than to make her draught- 
boards, shuttlecocks, and cups and balls. But 1 


OUR COUNTRY. 


143 


had an old uncle at Vincennes whom I went to see 
from time to time — a Fontenoy veteran in the 
same rank of life as myself, hut with ability enough 
to have risen to that of a marshal. Unluckily, in 
those days there was no way for common people 
to get on. My uncle, whose services would have 
got him made a prince under the other, had then 
retired with the mere rank of sub-lieutenant. But 
you should have seen him in his uniform, his cross 
of St. Louis, his wooden leg, his white mustaches, 
and his noble countenance. You would have said he 
was a portrait of one of those old heroes in pow- 
dered hair which are at Versailles ! 

“ Every time I visited him, he said something 
which remained fixed in my memory. But one day 
I found him quite grave. 

“ ‘ Jerome,’ said he, ‘ do you know what is go- 
ing on on the frontier ? ’ 

‘‘ ‘No, lieutenant,’ replied I. 

“ ‘ Well,’ resumed he, ‘ our country is in dan- 
ger ! ’ 

“ I did not well understand him, and yet it 
seemed something to me. 

“ ‘ Perhaps you have never thought what your 
country means,’ continued he, placing his hand on 
my shoulder ; ‘it is all that surrounds you, all 
that has brought you up and fed you, all that you 
have loved ! This ground that you see, these 
houses, these trees, those girls who go along there 
laughing — this is your country ! The laws which 


144 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


protect you, the bread which pays for your work, 
the words you interchange with others, the joy and 
grief which come to you from the men and things 
among which you live — this is your country ! The 
little room where you used to see your mother, 
the remembrances she has left you, the earth where 
she rests — this is your country ! You see it, you 
breathe it, everywhere ! Think to yourself, my son, 
of your rights and your duties, your affections and 
your wants, your past and your present blessings ; 
write them all under a single name — and that name 
will be your country ! ’ 

was trembling with emotion, and great 
tears were in my eyes. 

‘‘‘Ah! I understand,’ cried I; ‘it is our 
home in large ; it is that part of the world where 
God has placed our body and our soul.’ 

“‘You are right, Jerome,’ continued the old 
soldier ; ‘ so you comprehend also what we owe 
it.’ 

“ ‘ Truly,’ resumed I, ‘ we owe it all that we 
are ; it is a question of love.’ 

“ ‘ And of honesty, my son,’ concluded he. 
‘The member of a family who does not contri- 
bute his share of work and of happiness fails in 
his duty, and is a bad kinsman ; the member of a 
partnership who does not enrich it with all his 
might, with all his courage, and with all his heart, 
defrauds it of what belongs to it, and is a dis- 
honest man. It is the same with him who en- 


OUR COUNTRY. 


145 


joys the advantages of having a country, and 
does not accept the burdens of it ; he forfeits his 
honor, and is a bad citizen ! ’ 

‘‘ ‘And what must one do, lieutenant, to be a 
good citizen ? ’ asked I. 

“ ‘Do for your country what you would do for 
your father and mother,’ said he. 

“ I did not answer at the moment ; my heart 
was swelling, and the blood boiling in my veins : 
but on returning along the road, my uncle’s words 
were, so to speak, written up before my eyes. I 
repeated, ‘ Do for your country what you would 
do for your father and mother.’ And my country 
is in danger ; an enemy attacks it, while I — I turn 
cups and balls ! 

“ This thought tormented me so much all night, 
that the next day I returned to Vincennes to an- 
nounce to the lieutenant that I had just enlisted, 
and was going off to the frontiers. The brave 
man pressed me upon his cross of St. Louis, and I 
went away as proud as an ambassador. 

“ That is how, neighbor, I became a volunteer 
under the Republic before I had cut my wisdom 
teeth.” 

All this was told quietly, and in the cheerful 
spirit of him who looks upon an accomplished duty 
neither as a merit nor a grievance. 

While he spoke. Father Chaufour grew ani- 
mated, not on account of himself, but of the gen- 
eral subject. Evidently that which occupied him 
10 


146 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


in the drama of life was not his own part, bnt the 
drama itself. 

This sort of disinterestedness touched me. I 
prolonged my visit, and showed myself as frank 
as possible, in order to win his confidence in re- 
turn. In an hour’s time he knew my position and 
my habits ; I was on the footing of an old ac- 
quaintance. 

I even confessed the ill humor the light of his 
lamp put me into a short time before. He took 
what I said with the touching cheerfulness which 
comes from a heart in the right place, and which 
looks upon everything on the good side. He 
neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged 
him to work while I could sleep, nor of the dep- 
rivations of the old soldier compared to the lux- 
ury of the young clerk ; he only struck his fore- 
head, accused himself of thoughtlessness, and 
promised to put list round his door ! 

O great and beautiful soul ! with whom no- 
thing turns to bitterness, and who art peremptory 
only in duty and benevolence ! 

October — This morning I was looking at 

a little engraving I had framed myself, and hung 
over my writing-table ; it is a design of Gavami’s, 
in which, in a grave mood, he has represented “rf 
T'eteran and a Conscript P * 

By often contemplating these two figures, so 

* See this beautiful composition in the “ Magasin Pitto. 
resque” for 1847. 


OUR COUNTRY. 


147 


different in expression, and so true to life, both 
have become living in my eyes ; I have seen them 
move, I have heard them speak ; the picture has 
become a real scene, at which I am present as 
spectator. 

The veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning 
on the shoulder of the young soldier. His eyes, 
closed for ever, no longer perceive the sun shining 
through the flowering chestnut-trees. In the 
place of his right arm hangs an empty sleeve, and 
he walks with a wooden leg, the sound of which 
on the pavement makes those who pass turn to 
look. 

At the sight of this ancient wreck from our 
patriotic wars, the greater number shake their 
heads in pity, and I seem to hear a sigh or an im- 
precation. 

“ See the worth of glory ! ” says a portly mer' 
chant, turning away his eyes in horror. 

“ What a deplorable use of human life ! ” re- 
joins a young man who carries a volume of philos- 
ophy under his arm. 

The trooper would better not have left his 
plow,” adds a countryman with a cunning air. 

Poor old man ! ” murmurs a woman almost 
crying. 

The veteran has heard, and he knits his brow ; 
for it seems to him that his guide has grown 
thoughtful. The latter, attracted by what he 
hears around him, hardly answers the old man’s 


148 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


questions, and his eyes, vaguely lost in space, seem 
to be seeking there for the solution of some prob- 
lem. 

I seem to see a twitching in the gray mustaches 
of the veteran ; he stops abruptly, and, holding 
back his guide with his remaining arm — 

‘‘ They all pity me,” says he, ‘‘ because they 
do not understand it ; but if I were to answer 
them — ” 

“ What would you say to them, father ? ” asks 
the young man with curiosity. 

“ I would say first to the woman who weeps 
when she looks at me, to keep her tears for other 
misfortunes ; for each of my wounds calls to mind 
some struggle for my colors. There is room for 
doubting how some men have done their duty : 
with me it is visible. I carry the account of my 
services, written with the enemy’s steel and lead, 
on myself ; to pity me for having done my duty, 
is to suppose I would better have been false to it.” 

“And what would you say to the country- 
man, father ? ” 

“ I would tell him that, to drive the plow in 
peace, we must first secure the country itself ; and 
that, as long as there are foreigners ready to eat 
our harvest, there must be arms to defend it.” 

“ But the young student, too, shook his head 
when he lamented such a use of life.” 

“ Because he does not know what self-sacrifice 
and suffering can teach. The books which he 


OUR COUNTRY. 


149 


studies we have put in practice, though we never 
read them : the principles he applauds we have 
defended with powder and bayonet.” 

“ And at the price of your limbs and your 
blood. The merchant said, when he saw your 
maimed body, ‘ See the worth of glory ! ’ ” 

“ Do not believe him, my son : the true glory 
is the bread of the soul ; it is this which nourishes 
self-sacrifice, patience, and courage. The Master 
of all has bestowed it as a tie the more between men. 
When we desire to be distinguished by our breth- 
ren, do we not thus prove our esteem and our 
sympathy for them ? The longing for admiration 
is but one side of love. No, no ; the true glory 
can never be too dearly paid for ! That which we 
should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which 
prove a generous self-sacrifice, but those which 
our vices or our imprudence have called forth. 
Ah ! if I could speak aloud to those who, when 
passing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say 
to the young man whose excesses have dimmed 
his sight before he is old, ‘ What have you done 
with your eyes ? ’ To the slothful man, who with 
difficulty drags along his enervated mass of fiesh, 
‘ What have you done with your feet ? ’ To the 
old man who is punished for his intemperance by 
the gout, ‘ What have you done with your hands ? ’ 
To all, ‘ What have you done with the days God 
granted you, with the faculties you should have 
employed for the good of your brethren?’ If 


150 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


you can not answer, bestow no more of your pity 
upon the old soldier maimed in his country’s 
cause ; for he — he at least — can show his scars 
without shame.” 

October \^th . — The little engraving has made 
me comprehend better the merits of Father 
Chaufour, and I therefore esteem him all the 
more. 

He has just now left my attic. There no 
longer passes a single day without his coming to 
work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by 
his board. 

The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes 
to tell of it. For twenty years he was an armed 
traveler throughout Europe, and he fought with- 
out hatred, for he was possessed by a single thought 
— the honor of the national flag ! It might have 
been his superstition, if you will ; but it was, at 
the same time, his safeguard. 

The word Feance, which was then resounding 
so gloriously through the world, served as a talis- 
man to him against all sorts of temptation. To 
have to support a great name may seem a burden 
to vulgar minds, but it is an encouragement to 
vigorous ones. 

“ I, too, have had many moments,” said he to 
me the other day, “ when I have been tempted to 
make friends with the devil. War is not precise- 
ly the school for rural virtues. By dint of burn- 
ing, destroying, and killing, you grow a little 


OUR COUNTRY. 


151 


tough as regards your feelings ; and, when the 
bayonet has made you king, the notions of an au- 
tocrat come into your head a little strongly. But 
at these moments I called to mind that country 
which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whis- 
pered to myself the well-known phrase, Toujours 
Frangais ! It has been laughed at since. People 
who would make a joke of the death of their 
mother have turned it into ridicule, as if the name 
of our country was not also a noble and a binding 
thing. For my part, I shall never forget from how 
many follies the title of Frenchman has kept me. 
When, overcome with fatigue, I have found my- 
self in the rear of the colors, and when the musk- 
etry was rattling in the front ranks, many a time 
I heard a voice, which whispered in my ear, ‘ Leave 
the others to fight, and for to-day take care of 
your own hide ! ’ But then, that word Fran^ais f 
murmured within me, and I pressed forward to 
help my comrades. At other times, when, irritat- 
ed by hunger, cold, and wounds, I have arrived 
at the hovel of some Meinherr, I have been seized 
by an itching to break the master’s back, and to 
burn his hut; but I whispered, myself to Frangais I 
and this name would not rhyme either with incen- 
diary or murderer. I have, in this way, passed 
through kingdoms from east to west, and from 
north to south, always determined not to bring 
disgrace upon my country’s flag. The lieutenant, 
you see, had taught me a magic word — My coun- 


152 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


tr^/ Kot only must we defend it, but we must 
also make it great and loved.” 

October 17th. — To-day I have paid my neigh- 
bor a long visit. A chance expression led the 
way to his telling me more of himself than he had 
yet done. 

I asked him whether both his limbs had been 
lost in the same battle. 

“No, no ! ” replied he ; “ the cannon only took 
my leg ; it was the Clamart quarries that my arm 
went to feed.” 

And when I asked him for the particulars — 

“ That’s as easy as to say good morning,” con- 
tinued he. “After the great break-up at Water- 
loo, I stayed three months in the camp hospital to 
give my wooden leg time to grow. As soon as I 
was able to hobble a little, I took leave of head- 
quarters, and took the road to Paris, where I 
hoped to find some relation or friend ; but no — all 
were gone, or under ground. I should have found 
myself less strange at Vienna, Madrid, or Berlin. 
And although I had a leg the less to provide for, 
I was none the better off ; my appetite had come 
back, and my last sous were taking flight. 

“ I had indeed met my old colonel, who recol- 
lected that I had helped him out of the skirmish 
at Montereau by giving him my horse, and he had 
offered me bed and board at his house. I knew 
that the year before he had married a castle and 
no few farms, so that I might become permanent 


OUR COUNTRY. 


153 


coat-brusher to a millionaire, which was not with- 
out its temptations. It remained to see if I had not 
anything better to do. One evening I set myself 
to reflect upon it. 

“ ‘ Let us see, Chauf our,’ said I to myself ; ‘ the 
question is to act like a man. The colonel’s place 
suits you, but can not you do anything better? 
Your body is still in good condition, and your 
arms strong ; do you not owe all your strength 
to your country, as your Vincennes uncle said? 
Why not leave some old soldier, more cut up 
than you are, to get his hospital at the colonel’s ? 
Come, trooper, you are still fit for another stout 
charge or two ! You must not lay up before your 
time.’ 

“ Whereupon I went to thank the colonel, and 
to offer my services to an old artilleryman, who 
had gone back to his home at Clamart, and who 
had taken up the quarryman’s pick again. 

‘‘ For the first few months I played the con- 
script’s part — that is to say, there was more stir 
than work ; but with a good will one gets the 
better of stones, as of everything else. I did not 
become, so to speak, the leader of a column, but I 
brought up the rank among the good workmen, 
and I ate my bread with a good appetite, seeing I 
had earned it with a good will. For even under 
ground, you see, I still kept my pride. The 
thought that I was working to do my part in 
changing rocks into houses pleased my heart. I 


154 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


said to myself, ‘ Courage, Chaufour, my old boy ; 
you are helping to beautify your country.’ And 
that kept up my spirit. 

“ Unfortunately, some of my companions were 
rather too sensible to the charms of the brandy 
bottle ; so much so, that one day one of them, who 
could hardly distinguish his right hand from his 
left, thought proper to strike a light close to a 
charged mine. The mine exploded suddenly, and 
sent a shower of stone grape among us, which 
killed three men, and carried away the arm of 
which I have now only the sleeve.” 

“ So you were again without means of living ? ” 
said I to the old soldier. 

‘‘ That is to say, I had to change them,” replied 
he quietly. “ The difficulty was to find one which 
would do with five fingers instead of ten ; I found 
it, however.” 

“ How was that ? ” 

“ Among the Paris street-sweepers.” 

‘‘ What ! you have been one — ” 

“Of the pioneers of the health force for a 
while, neighbor, and that was not my worst time 
either. The corps of sweepers is not so low as it 
is dirty, I can tell you ! There are old actresses 
in it who could never learn to save their money, 
and ruined merchants from the exchange ; we 
even had a professor of classics, who for a little 
drink would recite Latin to you, or Greek trage- 
dies, as you chose. They could not have competed 


OUR COUNTRY. 


155 


for tlie Monthyon prize ; but we excused faults on 
account of poverty, and cheered our poverty by 
our good humor and jokes. I was as ragged and 
as cheerful as the rest, while trying to be some- 
thing better. Even in the mire of the gutter I 
preserved my faith that nothing is dishonorable 
which is useful to our country. 

“ ‘ Chaufour,’ said I to myself with a smile, 
‘ after the sword, the hammer ; after the hammer, 
the broom ; you are going down stairs, my old 
boy, but you are still serving your country.’ ” 

“ However, you ended by leaving your new 
profession ? ” said I. 

‘‘ A reform was required, neighbor. The street- 
sweepers seldom have their feet dry, and the damp 
at last made the wounds in my good leg open again. 
I could no longer follow the regiment, and it was 
necessary to lay down my arms. It is now two 
months since I left off working in the sanitary 
department of Paris. 

“ At the first moment I was daunted. Of my 
four limbs, I had now only my right hand, and 
even that had lost its strength ; so it was neces- 
sary to find some gentlemanly occupation for it. 
After trying a little of everything, I fell upon card- 
box making, and here I am at cases for the lace 
and buttons of the national guard ; it is work of 
little profit, but it is within the capacity of all. 
By getting up at four and working till eight, I 
earn sixty-five centimes ; my lodging and bowl of 


156 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


soup take fifty of them, and there are three sous 
over for luxuries. So I am richer than France her- 
self, for I have no deficit in my budget ; and I 
continue to serve her, as I save her lace and but“ 
tons.” 

At these words Father Chaufour looked at me 
with a smile, and with his great scissors began cut- 
ting the green paper again for his card-board cases. 
My heart was touched, and I remained lost in 
thought. 

Here is still another member of that sacred 
phalanx who, in the battle of life, always march 
in front for the example and the salvation of the 
world ! Each of these brave soldiers has his war- 
cry ; for this one it is “ Country,” for that “ Home,” 
for a third ‘‘ Mankind ” ; but they all follow the 
same standard — that of duty ; for all the same 
divine law reigns — that of self-sacrifice. To love 
something more than one’s self — that is the secret 
of all that is great ; to know how to live for others 
— that is the aim of all noble souls. 


CHAPTER XI. 

MOKAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 

Noli ember 13^A, nine clock p. m. — I had well 
stopped up the chinks of my window ; my little 
carpet was nailed down in its place ; my lamp. 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


157 


provided with its shade, cast a subdued light 
around ; and my stove made a low murmuring 
sound, as if some live creature was sharing my 
hearth with me. 

All was silent around me. But out of doors 
the snow and rain swept the roofs, and with a low 
rushing sound ran along the gurgling gutters ; 
sometimes a gust of wind forced itself beneath the 
tiles, which rattled together like castanets, and 
afterward it was lost in the empty corridor. Then 
a slight and pleasurable shiver thrilled through 
my veins : I drew the flaps of my old wadded 
dressing-gown round me, I pulled my threadbare 
velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting myself sink 
deeper into my easy-chair, while my feet basked 
in the heat and light which shone through the 
door of the stove, I gave myself up to a sensation 
of enjoyment, made more lively by the conscious- 
ness of the storm which raged without. My eyes, 
swimming in a sort of mist, wandered over all the 
details of my peaceful abode ; they passed from 
my prints to my bookcase, resting upon the little 
chintz sofa, the white curtains of the iron bedstead, 
and the portfolio of loose papers — those archives of 
the attics ; and then, returning to the book I held 
in my hand, they attempted to seize once more 
the thread of the reading which had been thus 
interrupted. 

In fact this book, the subject of which had at 
first interested me, had become painful to me. I 


158 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


had come to the conclusion that the pictures of 
the writer were too somber. His description of 
the miseries of the world appeared exaggerated to 
me ; I could not believe in such excess of poverty 
and of suffering ; neither God nor man could show 
themselves so harsh toward the sons of Adam. 
The author had yielded to an artistic temptation : 
he was making a show of the sufferings of human- 
ity, as Nero burnt Rome for the sake of the pic- 
turesque. 

Taken altogether, this poor human house, so 
often repaired, so much criticised, is still a pretty 
good abode ; we may find enough in it to satisfy 
our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them ; 
the happiness of the wise man costs but little, and 
asks but little space. 

These consoling reflections became more anc* 
more confused. At last my book fell on the 
ground without my having the resolution to stoop 
and take it up again ; and insensibly overcome by 
the luxury of the silence, the subdued light, and 
the warmth, I fell asleep. 

I remained for some time lost in the sort of 
insensibility belonging to a first sleep ; at last 
some vague and broken sensations came over me. 
It seemed to me that the day grew darker, that 
the air became colder. I half perceived bushes 
covered with the scarlet berries which foretell the 
coming of winter. I walked on a dreary road, 
bordered here and there with juniper- trees white 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


159 


with frost. Then the scene suddenly changed. I 
was in the diligence : the cold wind shook the 
doors and windows ; the trees, loaded with snow, 
passed by like ghosts ; in vain I thrust my be- 
numbed feet into the crushed straw. At last the 
carriage stopped, and, by one of those stage ef- 
fects so common in sleep, I found myself alone in 
a barn, without a fireplace, and open to the winds 
on all sides. I saw again my mother’s gentle face, 
known only to me in my early childhood, the 
noble and stern countenance of my father, the 
little fair head of my sister, who was taken from 
us at ten years old : all my dead family lived again 
around me ; they were there, exposed to the bit- 
ings of the cold and to the pangs of hunger. My 
mother prayed by the resigned old man, and my 
sister, rolled up on some rags of which they had 
made her a bed, cried in silence, and held ner 
naked feet in her little blue hands. 

It was a page from the book I had just read 
transferred into my own existence. 

My heart was oppressed with inexpressible an^ 
guish. Crouched in a corner, with my eyes fixed 
upon this dismal picture, I felt the cold slowdy 
creeping upon me, and I said to myself with bit- 
terness : 

“ Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded 
by suspicion, apathy, and contempt, and from which 
it is vain to try to escape ; let us die, since there 
is no place for us at the banquet of the living ! ” 


160 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


And I tried to rise to join my mother again, 
and to wait at her feet for the hour of release. 

This effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke 
with a start. 

I looked around me ; my lamp was expiring, 
the fire in my stove extinguished, and my half- 
opened door was letting in an icy wind. I got 
up, with a shiver, to shut and double-lock it ; 
then I made for the alcove, and went to bed in 
haste. 

But the cold kept me awake a long time, and 
my thoughts continued the interrupted dream. 

The pictures I had lately accused of exaggera- 
tion now seemed but a too faithful representation 
of reality ; and I went to sleep without being 
able to recover my optimism — or my warmth. 

Thus did a cold stove and a badly closed door 
alter my point of view. All went well when my 
blood circulated properly ; all looked gloomy when 
the cold laid hold on me. 

This reminds me of the story of the duchess 
who was obliged to pay a visit to the neighboring 
convent on a winter’s day. The convent was 
poor, there was no wood, and the monks had no- 
thing but their discipline and the ardor of their 
prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, who 
was shivering with nold, returned home, greatly 
pitying the poor monks. While the servants were 
taking off her cloak and adding two more logs to 
her fire, she called for her steward, whom she or- 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


161 


dered to send some wood to the convent immedi- 
ately. She then had her couch moved close to the 
fireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. 
The recollection of what she had just suffered was 
speedily lost in her present comfort, when the 
steward came in again to ask how many loads of 
wood he was to send. 

“ Oh ! you may wait,” said the great lady care- 
lessly ; “the weather is very much milder.” 

Thus, man’s judgments are formed less from 
reason than from sensation ; and as sensation 
comes to him from the outward world, so he finds 
himself more or less under its influence ; by little 
and little he imbibes a portion of his habits and 
feelings from it. 

It is not then without cause that, when we 
wish to judge of a stranger beforehand, we look 
for indications of his character in the circum- 
stances which surround him. The things among 
which we live are necessarily made to take our 
image, and we unconsciously leave in them a 
thousand impressions of our minds. As we can 
judge by an empty bed of the height and attitude 
of him who has slept in it, so the abode of every 
man discovers to a close observer the extent of 
his intelligence and the feelings of his heart. 
Bemardin de St. -Pierre has related the story of a 
young girl who refused a suitor because he would 
never have flowers or domestic animals in his 
house. Perhaps the sentence was severe, but not 


11 


162 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


without reason. We may presume that a man in- 
sensible to beauty and to humble affection must 
be ill prepared to feel the enjoyments of a happy 
marriage. 

14^A, semn o'clock p. m. — This morning, as I 
was opening my journal to write, I had a visit 
from our old cashier. 

His sight is not so good as it was, his hand be- 
gins to shake, and the work he was able to do 
formerly is now becoming somewhat laborious to 
him. I had undertaken to write out some of hi^ 
papers, and he came for those I had finished. 

We conversed a long time by the stove, while 
he was drinking a cup of coffee which I made him 
take. 

M. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed 
much and speaks little ; so that he has always 
something to say. 

While looking over the accounts I had pre- 
pared for him, his looks fell upon my journal, and 
I was obliged to acknowledge that in this way I 
wrote a diary of my actions and thoughts every 
evening for private use. From one thing to an- 
other, I began speaking to him of my dream the 
day before, and my reflections about the influence 
of outward objects upon our ordinary sentiments. 
He smiled. 

“ Ah ! you too have my superstitions he said 
quietly. “ I have always believed, like you, that 
you may know the game by the lair : it is only 


MOKAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


163 


necessary to have tact and experience ; but with- 
out them we commit ourselves to many rash judg- 
ments. For my part, I have been guilty of this 
more than once, but sometimes I have also drawn 
a right conclusion. I recollect especially an ad- 
venture which goes as far back as the first years 
of my youth — ” 

He stopped. I looked at him as if I waited 
for his story, and he told it me at once. 

At this time he was still but third clerk to an 
attorney at Orleans. His master had sent him to 
Montargis on different affairs, and he intended to 
return in the diligence the same evening, after 
having received the amount of a bill at a neigh- 
boring town ; but they kept him at the debtor’s 
house, and when he was able to set out the day 
had already closed. 

Fearing not to be able to reach Montargis in 
good time, he took a cross-road they pointed out 
to him. Unfortunately the fog increased, no star 
was visible in the heavens, and the darkness be- 
came so great that he lost his road. He tried to 
retrace his steps, passed twenty footpaths, and at 
last found himself completely astray. 

After the vexation of losing his place in the 
diligence, came the feeling of uneasiness as to his 
situation. He was alone, on foot, lost in a forest, 
without any means of finding his right road again, 
and with a considerable sum of money about him, 
for which he was responsible. His anxiety was 


164 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


increased by bis inexperience. The idea of a for- 
est was connected in his mind with so many ad- 
ventures of robbery and murder, that he expect- 
ed some fatal encounter every instant. 

To say the truth, his situation was not encour- 
aging. The place was not considered safe, and 
for some time past there had been rumors of the 
sudden disappearance of several horse-dealers, 
though there was no trace of any crime having 
been committed. 

Our young traveler, with his eyes staring for- 
ward, and his ears listening, followed a footpath 
which he supposed might take him to some house 
or road ; but woods always succeeded to woods. 
At last he perceived a light at a distance, and in 
a quarter of an hour he reached the high-road. 

A single house, the light from which had at- 
tracted him, appeared at a little distance. He 
was going toward the entrance gate of the court- 
yard, when the trot of a horse made him turn his 
head. A man on horseback had just appeared at 
the turning of the road, and in an instant was 
close to him. 

The first words he addressed to the young man 
showed him to be the farmer himself. He related 
how he had lost himself, and learned from the 
countryman that he was on the road to PithivierSc 
Montargis was three leagues behind him. 

The fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling 
rain, which was beginning to wet the young clerk 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


165 


through ; he seemed afraid of the distance he had 
still to go, and the horseman, who saw his hesita- 
tion, invited him to come into the farm-house. 

It had something of the look of a fortress. 
Surrounded hy a pretty high wall, it could not he 
seen except through the bars of the great gate, 
which was carefully closed. The farmer, who had 
got off his horse, did not go near it, but, turning 
to the right, reached another entrance closed in 
the same way, but of which he had the key. 

Hardly had he passed the threshold when a 
terrible barking resounded from each end of the 
yard. The farmer told his guest to fear nothing, 
and showed him the dogs chained up to their ken- 
nels ; both were of an extraordinary size, and so 
savage that the sight of their master himself could 
not quiet them. 

A boy, attracted by their barking, came out 
of the house and took the farmer’s horse. The 
latter began questioning him about some orders 
he had given before he left the house, and went 
toward the stable to see that they had been exe- 
cuted. 

Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him. 

A lantern which the boy had placed on the 
ground cast a dim light over the courtyard. All 
around seemed empty and deserted. Not a trace 
was visible of the disorder often seen in a country 
farmyard, and which shows a temporary cessation 
of the work which is soon to be resumed again* 


166 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Neither a cart forgotten where the horses had been 
unharnessed, nor sheaves of corn heaped up ready 
for threshing, nor a plow overturned in a corner 
and half hidden under the freshly cut clover. The 
yard was swept, the barns shut up and padlocked. 
Not a single vine creeping up the walls ; every- 
where stone, wood, and iron ! 

He took up the lantern and went up to the 
corner of the house. Behind was a second yard, 
where he heard the barking of a third dog, and a 
covered well was built in the middle of it. 

Our traveler looked in vain for the little farm 
garden, where pumpkins of different sorts creep 
along the ground, or where the bees from the 
hives hum under the hedges of honeysuckle and 
elder. Verdure and flowers were nowhere to be 
seen. 'He did not even perceive the sight of a 
poultry-yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of 
his host was everywhere wanting in that which 
makes the grace, the life, and the charm of the 
country. 

The young man thought that his host must be 
of a very careless or a very calculating disposi- 
tion, to concede so little to domestic enjoyments 
and the pleasures of the eye ; and judging, in 
spite of himself, by what he saw, he could not 
help feeling a distrust of his character. 

In the mean time the farmer returned from 
the stables, and made him enter the house. 

The inside of the farm-house corresponded to 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


167 


its outside. The whitewashed walls had no other 
ornament than a row of guns of all sizes ; the 
massive furniture scarcely redeemed its clumsy 
appearance by its great solidity. The cleanliness 
was doubtful, and the absence of all minor con- 
veniences proved that a woman’s care was want- 
ing in the household concerns. The young clerk 
learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here with no 
one but his two sons. 

Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. 
A table with a cloth laid, that no one had taken 
the trouble to clear away, was left near the win- 
dow. The plates and dishes were scattered upon 
it without any order, and loaded with potato par- 
ings and half -picked bones. Several empty bot- 
tles emitted an odor of brandy, mixed with the 
pungent smell of tobacco smoke. 

After having seated his guest, the farmer lit 
his pipe, and his two sons resumed their work by 
the fireside. Now and then the silence was just 
broken by a short remark, answered by a word or 
an exclamation ; and then all became as mute as 
before. 

“ From my childhood,” said the old cashier, “ I 
had been very sensible to the impression of out- 
ward objects ; later in life, reflection had taught 
me to study the causes of these impressions rath- 
er than to drive them away. I set myself, then, to 
examine everything around me with great atten- 
tion. 


168 AN ATTIC PHILOSOniER IN PARIS. 


“ Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, 
some wolf -traps were suspended, and to one of 
them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf’s 
paw, which they had not yet taken off from the 
iron teeth. The blackened chimneypiece was or- 
namented by an owl and a raven nailed on the 
wall, their wings extended, and their throats with 
a huge nail through each ; a fox’s skin, freshly 
flayed, was spread before the window ; and a lar- 
der hook, fixed into the principal beam, held a 
headless goose, whose body swayed about over 
our heads. 

“My eyes were offended by all these details, 
and I turned them again upon my hosts. The fa- 
ther, who sat opposite to me, only interrupted his 
smoking to pour out his drink, or address some 
reprimand to his sons. The eldest of these was 
scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody scrapings, 
which he threw into the fire every instant, filled 
the room with a disagreeable fetid smell ; the sec- 
ond son was sharpening some butcher’s knives. I 
learned from a word dropped from the father that 
they were preparing to kill a pig the next day. 

“ These occupations and the whole aspect of 
things inside the house told of such habitual 
coarseness in their way of living as seemed to ex- 
plain, while it formed the fitting counterpart of, 
the forbidding gloominess of the outside. My 
astonishment by degrees changed into disgust, 
and my disgust into uneasiness. I can not detail 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


169 


the whole chain of ideas which succeeded one an- 
other in my imagination ; hut, yielding to an im- 
pulse I could not overcome, I got up, declaring I 
would go on my road again. 

“ The farmer made some effort to keep me ; he 
spoke of the rain, of the darkness, and of the 
length of the way. I replied to all by the abso- 
lute necessity there was for my being at Montar- 
gis that very night ; and thanking him for his 
brief hospitality, I set off again in a haste which 
might well have confirmed the truth of my words 
to him. 

“ However, the freshness of the night and the 
exercise of walking did not fail to change the di- 
rections of my thoughts. When away from the 
objects which had awakened such lively disgust 
in me, I felt it gradually diminishing. I began to 
smile at the susceptibility of my feelings, and then, 
in proportion as the rain became heavier and cold- 
er, these strictures on myself assumed a tone of 
ill temper. I silently accused myself of the ab- 
surdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of 
my reason. After all, were not the farmer and 
his sons free to live alone, to hunt, to keep dogs, 
and to kill a pig ? Where was the crime of it ? 
With less nervous susceptibility, I should have 
accepted the shelter they offered me, and I should 
now be sleeping snugly on a truss of straw, instead 
of walking with difficulty through the cold and 
drizzling rain. I thus continued to reproach my- 


170 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


self j until toward morning I arrived at Montargis, 
jaded and benumbed with cold. 

“ When, however, I got up refreshed, toward 
the middle of the next day, I instinctively re- 
turned to my first opinion. The appearance of the 
farm-house presented itself to me under the same 
repulsive colors which the evening before had de- 
termined me to make my escape from it. Reason 
itself remained silent when reviewing all those 
coarse details, and was forced to recognize in them 
the indications of a low nature, or else the pres- 
ence of some baleful influence. 

“ I went away the next day without being able 
to learn anything concerning the farmer or his 
sons ; but the recollection of my adventure re- 
mained deeply fixed in my memory. 

“ Ten years afterward I was traveling in the 
diligence through the department of the Loiret ; 
I was leaning from the window, and looking at 
some coppice ground now for the first time brought 
under cultivation, and the mode of clearing which 
one of my traveling companions was explaining 
to me, when my eyes fell upon a walled inclosure, 
with an iron-barred gate. Inside it I perceived 
a house with all the blinds closed, and which I 
immediately recollected ; it was the farm-house 
where I had been sheltered. T eagerly pointed 
it out to my companion, and asked who lived 
in it. 

“ ‘ Nobody just now,’ replied he. 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


171 


“ ‘ But was it not kept, some years ago, by a 
farmer and his two sons ? ’ 

“ ‘ The Turreaus,’ said my traveling compan- 
ion, looking at me ; ‘ did you know them ? ’ 

“ ‘ I saw them once.’ 

“ He shook his head. 

“ ‘ Yes, yes ! ’ resumed he ; ‘ for many years 
they lived there like wolves in their den ; they 
merely knew how to till land, kill game, and drink. 
The father managed the house, hut men living 
alone, without women to love them, without chil- 
dren to soften them, and without God to make 
them think of heaven, always turn into wild 
beasts, you see ; so one morning the eldest son, 
who had been drinking too much brandy, would 
not harness the plow-horses ; his father struck 
him with his whip, and the son, who was mad drunk, 
shot him dead with his gun.’ ” 

16^A, p. M. — I have been thinking of the story 
of the old cashier these two days ; it came so op- 
portunely upon the reflections my dream had sug- 
gested to me. 

Have I not an important lesson to learn from 
all this ? 

If our sensations have an incontestable influ- 
ence upon our judgments, how comes it that we 
are so little careful of those things which awaken 
or modify these sensations ? The external world 
is always reflected in us as in a mirror, and fills 
our minds with pictures which, unconsciously to 


172 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


ourselves, become the germs of our opinions and 
of our rules of conduct. All the objects which 
surround us are then, in reality, so many talismans 
from whence good and bad influences are emitted. 
It is for us to choose them wisely, so as to create 
a healthy atmosphere for our minds. 

Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about 
making a survey of my attic. 

The first object on which my eyes rest is an 
old map of the history of the principal monastery 
in my native province. I had unrolled it with 
much satisfaction, and placed it on the most con- 
spicuous part of the wall. Why had I given it 
this place ? Ought this sheet of old worm-eaten 
parchment to be of so much value to me, who am 
neither an antiquary nor a scholar ? Is not its real 
importance in my sight that one of the abbots who 
founded it bore my name, and that I shall, per- 
chance, be able to make myself a genealogical tree 
of it for the edification of my visitors ? While 
writing this, I feel my own blushes. Come, down 
with the map ! let us banish it into my deepest 
drawer. 

As I passed my glass, I perceived several visit- 
ing cards complacently displayed in the frame. 
By what chance is it that there are only names 
that make a show among them ? Here is a Polish 
count — a retired colonel — the deputy of my de- 
partment. Quick, quick, into the fire with these 
proofs of vanity ! and let us put this card in the 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


173 


handwriting of our office boy, this direction for 
cheap dinners, and the receipt of the broker where 
I bought my last arm-chair, in their place. These 
indications of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne 
says, mater ma superhe^ and will always make me 
recollect the modesty in which the dignity of the 
lowly consists. 

I have stopped before the prints hanging upon 
the wall. This large and smiling Pomona, seated 
on sheaves of corn, and whose basket is overflow- 
ing with fruit, only produces thoughts of joy and 
plenty ; I was looking at her the other day, when 
I fell asleep denying such a thing as misery. Let 
us give her as companion this picture of Winter, 
in which everything tells of sorrow and sufl'ering : 
one picture will modify the other. 

And this Happy Family of Greuze’s ! What 
joy in the children’s eyes ! what sweet repose in 
the young woman’s face ! what religious feeling 
in the grandfather’s countenance ! May God pre- 
serve their happiness to them ! but let us hang by 
its side the picture of this mother, who weeps over 
an empty cradle. Human life has two faces, both of 
which we must dare to contemplate in their turns. 

Let me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters 
which ornamient my chimneypiece. Plato has said 
that the beautiful is nothing else than the visible 
form of the good. If it is so, the ugly should be 
the visible form of the evil, and, by constantly 
beholding it, the mind insensibly deteriorates. 


174 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


But above all, in order to cberisb tbe feelings 
of kindness and pity, let me hang at the foot of 
my bed this affecting picture of the Last Sleep ! 
Never have I been able to look at it without feel- 
ing my heart touched. 

An old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a 
roadside ; her stick is at her feet, and her head 
rests upon a stone ; she has fallen asleep ; her 
hands are clasped ; murmuring a prayer of her 
childhood, she sleeps her last sleep, she dreams her 
last dream ! 

She sees herself, again a strong and happy 
child, keeping the sheep on the common, gathering 
the berries from the hedges, singing, courtesying to 
passers-by, and making the sign of the cross when 
the first star appears in the heavens ! Happy time, 
filled with fragrance and sunshine ! She wants 
nothing yet, for she is ignorant of what there is 
to wish for. 

But see her grown up ; the time is come for 
working bravely : she must cut the corn, thresh 
the wheat, carry the bundles of flowering clover or 
branches of withered leaves to the farm. If her 
toil is hard, hope shines like a sun over everything 
and it wipes the drops of sweat away. The grow- 
ing gii’l already sees that life is a task ; but she 
still sings as she fulfills it. 

By and by the burden becomes heavier ; she 
is a wife, she is a mother ! She must economize 
the bread of to-day, have her eye upon the mor- 


MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES. 


175 


row, take care of the sick, and sustain the feeble ; 
she must act, in short, that part of an earthly 
Providence, so easy when God gives us his aid, so 
hard when He forsakes us. The woman is still 
strong, but she is anxious ; she sings no longer ! 

Yet a few years, and all is overcast. The hus- 
band’s health is broken ; his wife sees him pine 
away by the now fireless hearth ; cold and hun- 
ger finish what sickness had begun ; he dies, and 
his widow sits on the ground by the coffin provid- 
ed by the charity of others, pressing her two half- 
naked little ones in her arms. She dreads the fu- 
ture, she weeps, and she droops her head. 

At last the future has come ; the children are 
grown up, but they are no longer with her. Her 
son is fighting under his country’s flag, and his 
sister is gone. Both have been lost to her for a 
long time — ^perhaps for ever ; and the strong girl, 
the brave wife, the courageous mother, is from 
henceforth but an aged beggar-woman, without a 
family, and without a home ! She weeps no more, 
sorrow has subdued her; she surrenders, and waits 
for death. 

Death, that faithful friend of the wretched, is 
come : not hideous and with mockery, as supersti- 
tion represents, but beautiful, smiling, and crowned 
with stars ! The gentle phantom stoops to the 
beggar ; its pale lips murmur a few airy words, 
which announce to her the end of her labors ; a 
peaceful joy comes over the aged beggar-woman, 


176 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


and, leaning on the shoulder of the great Deliverer, 
she has passed unconsciously from her last earthly 
sleep to her eternal rest. 

Lie there, thou poor way-wearied woman ! 
The leaves will serve thee for a winding-sheet, 
Night will shed her tears of dew over thee, and 
the birds will sing sweetly by thy remains. Thy 
visit here below will not have left more trace than 
their flight through the air ; thy name is already 
forgotten, and the only legacy thou hast to leave 
is the hawthorn stick lying forgotten at thy feet ! 

Well ! some one will take it up — some soldier 
of that great human host which is scattered abroad 
by misery or by vice ; for thou art not an excep- 
tion, thou art an instance ; and under the same sun 
which shines so pleasantly upon all, in the midst 
of these flowering vineyards, this ripe corn, and 
these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, suc- 
ceed each other, and still bequeath to each the 
oeggar’s stick ! 

The sight of this sad picture shall make me 
more grateful for what God has given me, and 
more compassionate for those whom He has treated 
with less indulgence ; it shall be a lesson and a 
subject for reflection for me. 

Ah ! if we would watch for everything that 
might improve and instruct us ; if the arrangements 
of our daily life were so disposed as to be a constant 
school for our minds .' but oftenest we take no heed 
of them. Man is an eternal mystery to himself ; 


THE END OF THE YEAE. 


177 


his own person is a house into which he never en- 
ters, and of which he studies the outside alone. 
Each of us need have continually before him the 
famous inscription which once instructed Socrates, 
and which was engraved on the walls of Delphi 
by an unknown hand : 

“KNOW THYSELF.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE END OE THE TEAR. 

December ZOth, p. m. — I was in bed, and hard- 
ly recovered from the delirious fever which had 
kept me for so long between life and death. My 
weakened brain was making efforts to recover its 
activity ; my thoughts, like rays of light strug- 
gling through the clouds, were still confused and 
imperfect ; at times I felt a return of the dizzi- 
ness which made a chaos of all my ideas, and I 
floated, so to speak, between alternate flts of men- 
tal wandering and consciousness. 

Sometimes everything seemed plain to me, like 
the prospect which, from the top of some high 
mountain, opens before us in clear weather. We 
distinguish water, woods, villages, cattle, even the 
cottage perched on the edge of the ravine ; then 
suddenly there comes a gust of wind laden with 
mist, and all is confused and indistinct. 

12 


178 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


Thus, yielding to the oscillations of a half -re- 
covered reason, I allowed my mind to follow its 
various impulses without troubling myself to sep- 
arate the real from the imaginary ; I glided softly 
from one to the other, and my dreams and wak- 
ing thoughts succeeded closely upon one another. 

Now, while my mind is wandering in this 
unsettled state, see, underneath the clock which 
measures the hours with its loud ticking, a female 
figure appears before me ! 

At first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that 
she was not a daughter of Eve. In her eye was 
the last flash of an expiring star, and her face had 
the pallor of an heroic death struggle. She was 
dressed in a drapery of a thousand changing col- 
ors of the brightest and the most somber hues, 
and she held a withered garland in her hand. 

After having contemplated her for some mo- 
ments, I asked her name, and what brought her 
into my attic. Her eyes, which were following 
the movements of the clock, turned toward me, 
and she replied : 

“ You see in me the year which is just draw- 
ing to its end ; I come to receive your thanks 
and your farewell.” 

I raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which 
soon gave place to bitter resentment. 

Ah ! you want thanks,” cried I ; “ but first 
let me know Avhat for ? 

“ When I welcomed your coming, I was still 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


179 


young and vigorous : you have taken from me 
each day some little of my strength, and you have 
ended by inflicting an illness upon me ; already, 
thanks to you, my blood is less warm, my muscles 
less firm, and my feet less agile than before ! 
You have planted the germs of infirmity in my 
bosom ; there, where the summer flowers of life 
were growing, you have wickedly sown the net- 
tles of old age ! 

“ And, as if it was not enough to weaken my 
body, you have also diminished the powers of my 
soul : you have extinguished her enthusiasm ; she 
is become more sluggish and more timid. For- 
merly her eyes took in the whole of mankind in 
their generous survey; but you have made her near- 
sighted, and now she scarcely sees beyond herself ! 

That is what you have done for my spiritual 
being : then as to my outward existence, see to 
what grief, neglect, and misery you have reduced 
it ! 

“ For the many days that the fever has kept 
me chained to this bed, who has taken care of this 
home, in which I placed all my joy ? Shall I not 
find my closets empty, my bookcase stripped, all 
my poor treasures lost through negligence or dis- 
honesty ? Where are the plants I cultivated, the 
birds I fed ? All are gone ! my attic is despoiled, 
silent, and solitary ! 

‘‘ As it is only for the last few moments that I 
have returned to a consciousness of what sur- 


180 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


rounds me, I am even ignorant who has nursed 
me during my long illness ! Doubtless some hire- 
ling, who will leave when all my means of recom- 
pense are exhausted ! 

“ And what will my masters, for whom I am 
hound to work, have said to my absence ? At 
this time of the year, when business is most press- 
ing, can they have done without me, will they 
even have tried to do so ? Perhaps I am already 
superseded in the humble situation by which I 
earned my daily bread ! And it is thou — thou 
alone, wicked daughter of Time — who hast brought 
all these misfortunes upon me : strength, health, 
comfort, work — thou hast taken all from me. I 
have only received outrage and loss from thee, and 
yet thou darest to claim my gratitude ! 

“Ah ! die then, since thy day is come ; but 
die despised and cursed ; and may I write on thy 
tomb the epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon 
that of a king : 

“ ‘ Rejoice, thou passer-hy : he whom we have 
buried here can not live again^ ” 

I was awakened by a hand taking mine ; and 
opening my eyes, I recognized the doctor. 

After having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, 
sat down at the foot of the bed, and looked at me, 
rubbing his nose with his snuff-box. I have since 
learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the 
doctor. 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


181 


“ Well ! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry 
us off?” said M. Lambert, in his half -joking, half- 
scolding way. “ What the deuce of a hurry we 
were in ! It was necessary to hold you back with 
both arms at least ! ” 

“ Then you had given me up, doctor ? ” asked 
I, rather alarmed. 

“ Not at all,” replied the old physician. “We 
can’t give up what we have not got ; and I make 
it a rule never to have any hope. We are but in- 
struments in the hands of Providence, and each 
of us should say with Ambroise Pare : ‘ I tend him, 
God cures him ! ’ ” 

“May He be blessed then, as well as you,” 
cried I ; “ and may my health come back with the 
new year ! ” 

M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders. 

“Begin by asking yourself for it,” resumed he 
bluntly. “ God has given it you, and it is your 
own sense, and not chance, that must keep it for 
you. One would think, to hear people talk, that 
sickness comes upon us like the rain or the sun- 
shine, without one having a word to say in the 
matter. Before we complain of being ill we should 
prove that we deserve to be well.” 

I was about to smile, but the doctor looked 
angry. 

“ Ah ! you think that I am joking,” resumed 
he, raising his voice ; “ but tell me, then, which of 
us gives his health the same attention that he gives 


182 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


to his business ? Do you economize your strength 
as you economize your money? Do you avoid 
excess and imprudence in the one case with the 
same care as extravagance or foolish speculations 
in the other ? Do you keep as regular accounts of 
your mode of living as you do of your income ? 
Do you consider every evening what has been 
wholesome or unwholesome for you, with the same 
care as you bring to the examination of your ex- 
penditure? You may smile ; but have you not 
brought this illness on yourself by a thousand in- 
discretions ? ” 

I began to protest against this, and asked him 
to point out these indiscretions. The old doctor 
spread out his fingers, and began to reckon upon 
them one by one. 

“PWmo,” cried he, “want of exercise. You 
live here like a mouse in a cheese, without air, mo- 
tion, or change. Consequently, the blood circu- 
lates badly, the fluids thicken, the muscles, being 
inactive, do not claim their share of nutrition, the 
stomach flags, and the brain grows weary. 

Secundo. Irregular food. Caprice is your 
cook ; your stomach a slave who must accept 
what you give it, but who presently takes a sullen 
revenge, like all slaves, 

“ Tertio. Sitting up late.- Instead of using the 
night for sleep, you spend it in reading ; your 
bedstead is a bookcase, your pillow a desk ! At 
the time when the wearied brain asks for rest, you 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


183 


lead it through these nocturnal orgies, and you are 
surprised to find it the worse for them the next day. 

“ Quarto. Luxurious habits. Shut up in your 
attic, you insensibly surround yourself with a 
thousand effeminate indulgences. You must have 
list for your door, a blind for your window, a car- 
pet for your feet, an easy-chair stuffed with wool 
for your back, your fire lit at the first sign of cold, 
and a shade to your lamp ; and, thanks to all these 
precautions, the least draught makes you catch 
cold, common chairs give you no rest, and you 
must wear spectacles to support the light of day. 
You have thought you were acquiring comforts, 
and you have only contracted infirmities. 

“ Quinto — ” 

“Ah ! enough, enough, doctor ! ” cried I. 
“ Pray, do not carry your examination further ; 
do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my 
pleasures.” 

The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuff- 
box. 

“ You see,” said he more gently, and rising at 
the same time, “ you would escape from the truth. 
You shrink from inquiry — a proof that you are 
guilty. Habemus conjitentem reumi But at 
least, my friend, do not go on laying the blame 
on Time, like an old woman.” 

Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took 
his leave, declaring that his function was at an 
end, and that the rest depended upon myself. 


184 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


When the doctor was gone, I set about reflect- 
ing upon what he had said. 

Although his words were too sweeping, they 
were not the less true in the main. How often we 
accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we 
should seek in ourselves ! Perhaps it would have 
been wiser to let him finish the examination he 
had begun. 

But is there not another of more importance — 
that which concerns the health of the soul ? Am 
I so sure of having neglected no means of preserv- 
ing that during the year which is now ending ? 
Have I, as one of God’s soldiers upon earth, kept 
my courage and my arms efficient ? Shall I be 
ready for the great review of souls which must 
pass before Him who is m the dark valley of Je- 
hoshaphat ? 

Barest thou examine thyself, O my soul ! and 
see how often thou hast erred ? 

First, thou hast erred through pride ! for I 
have not duly valued the lowly. I have drunk 
too deeply of the intoxicating wines of genius, 
and have found no relish in pure water. I have 
disdained those words which had no other beauty 
than their sincerity ; I have ceased to love men 
solely because they are men — I have loved them 
for their endowments ; I have contracted the 
world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, 
and my sympathy has been awakened by admira- 
tion only. The vulgar crowd, which I ought to 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


185 


have followed with a friendly eye because it is 
composed of my brothers in hope or grief, I have 
let pass by me with as much indifference as if it 
were a flock of sheep. I am indignant with him 
who rolls in riches and despises the man poor in 
worldly wealth ; and yet, vain of my trifling 
knowledge, I despise him who is poor in mind — I 
scorn the poverty of intellect as others do that of 
dress ; I take credit for a gift which I did not be- 
stow on myself, and turn the favor of fortune in- 
to a weapon with which to attack others. 

Ah ! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ig- 
norance has revolted and raised a cry of hatred 
against genius, the fault is not alone in the envi- 
ous malice of ignorance, but comes in part, too, 
from the contemptuous pride of knowledge. 

Alas ! I have too completely forgotten the fa- 
ble of the two sons of the magician of Bagdad. 

One of them, struck by an irrevocable decree 
of destiny, was born blind, while the other en- 
joyed all the delights of sight. The latter, proud 
of his own advantages, laughed at his brother’s 
blindness, and disdained him as a companion. One 
morning the blind boy wished to go out with him. 

“ To what purpose,” said he, “ since the gods 
have put nothing in common between us? For 
me creation is a stage, where a thousand charming 
scenes and wonderful actors appear in succession ; 
for you it is only an obscure abyss, at the bottom 
of which you hear the confused murmur of an in- 


186 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


visible world. Continue then alone in your dark- 
ness, and leave the pleasures of light to those 
upon whom the day-star shines.” 

With these words he went away, and his 
brother, left alone, began to cry bitterly. His fa- 
ther, who heard him, immediately ran to him, and 
tried to console him by promising to give him 
whatever he desired. 

“ Can you give me sight ? ” asked the child. 

“Fate does not permit it,” said the magician. 

“ Then,” cried the blind boy eagerly, “ I ask 
you to put out the sun ! ” 

Who knows whether my pride has not pro- 
voked the same wish on the part of some one of 
my brothers who does not see ? 

But how much oftener have I erred through 
levity and want of thought ! How many resolu- 
tions have I taken at random ! how many judg- 
ments have I pronounced for the sake of a witti- 
cism ! how many mischiefs have I not done with- 
out any sense of my responsibility ! The greater 
part of men harm one another for the sake of do- 
ing something. We laugh at the honor of one, 
and compromise the reputation of another, like an 
idle man who saunters along a hedgerow, break- 
ing the young branches and destroying the most 
beautiful flowers. 

And, nevertheless, it is by this very thought- 
lessness that the fame of some men is created. It 
rises gradually, like one of those mysterious 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


187 


mounds in barbarous countries, to which a stone 
is added by every passer-by ; each one brings 
something at random, and adds it as he passes, 
without being able himself to see whether he is 
raising a pedestal or a gibbet. Who will dare 
look behind him, to see his rash judgments held 
up there to view ? 

Some time ago I was walking along the edge 
of the green mound on which the Montmartre 
telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the 
zigzag paths which wind up the hill, a man and a 
girl were coming up, and arrested my attention. 
The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him 
some resemblance to a wild beast ; and he held a 
thick stick in his hand, with which he described 
various strange figures in the air. He spoke very 
loud, and in a voice which seemed to me convulsed 
with passion. He raised his eyes every now and 
then with an expression of savage harshness, and 
it appeared to me that he was reproaching and 
threatening the girl, and that she was listening 
to him with a submissiveness which touched my 
heart. Two or three times she ventured a few 
words, doubtless in the attempt to justify herself ; 
but the man in the great-coat began again imme- 
diately with his loud and angry voice, his savage 
looks, and his threatening evolutions in the air. 
I followed him with my eyes, vainly endeavoring 
to catch a word as he passed, until he disappeared 
behind the hill. 


188 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


I had evidently just seen one of those domestic 
tyrants whose sullen tempers are excited by the 
patience of their victims, and who, though they 
have the power to become the beneficent gods of 
a family, choose rather to be their tormentors. 

I cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and 
I felt indignant that these crimes against the sa- 
cred peace of home could not be punished as they 
deserve, when I heard his voice approaching near- 
er. He had turned the path, and soon appeared 
before me at the top of the slope. 

The first glance, and his first words, explained 
everything to me : in place of what I had taken 
for the furious tones and terrible looks of an angry 
man, and the attitude of a frightened victim, I had 
before me only an honest citizen, who squinted 
and stuttered, but who was explaining the man- 
agement of silk-worms to his attentive daughter. 

I turned homeward, smiling at my mistake ; 
but before I reached my faubourg I saw a crowd 
running, I heard calls for help, and every finger 
pointed in the same direction to a distant column 
of flame. A manufactory had taken fire, and 
everybody was rushing forward to assist in extin- 
guishing it. 

I hesitated. IS'ight was coming on ; I felt 
tired ; a favorite book was awaiting me : I thought 
there would be no want of help, and I went on my 
way. 

Just before I had erred from want of consider- 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


189 


ation ; now it was from selfishness and cow- 
ardice. 

But what ! have I not on a thousand other oc- 
casions forgotten the duties which bind us to our 
fellow men ? Is this the first time I have avoided 
paying society what I owe it ? Have I not always 
behaved to my companions with injustice, and like 
the lion ? Have I not claimed successively every 
share ? If any one is so ill advised as to ask me 
to return some little portion, I get provoked,* I am 
angry, I try to escape from it by every means. 
How many times, when I have perceived a beggar 
sitting huddled up at the end of the street, have I 
not gone out of my way, for fear that compassion 
would impoverish me by forcing me to be charita- 
ble ! How often have I doubted the misfortunes 
of others, that I might with justice harden my 
heart against them ! With what satisfaction have 
I sometimes verified the vices of the poor man, in 
order to show that his misery is the punishment 
he deserves ! 

Oh ! let us not go further — let us not go fur- 
ther ! I interrupted the doctor’s examination, but 
how much sadder is this one ! We pity the dis- 
eases of the body; we shudder at those of the soul. 

I was happily disturbed in my reverie by my 
neighbor, the old soldier. 

Kow I think of it, I seem always to have seen, 
during my fever, the figure of this good old man, 
sometimes leaning against my bed, and sometimes 


190 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


sitting at his table, surrounded by his sheets of 
pasteboard. 

He has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire 
of green paper, and his great scissors. I called 
him by his name ; he uttered a joyful exclamation, 
and came near me. 

“Well ! so the bullet is found again ! ” cried 
he, taking my two hands into the maimed one 
which was left him ; “ it has not been without 
trouble, I can tell you : the campaign has been 
long enough to win two clasps in. I have seen no 
few fellows with the fever batter windmills dur- 
ing my hospital days : at Leipsic, I had a neigh- 
bor who fancied a chimney was on fire in his stom- 
ach, and who was always calling for the fire-en- 
gines ; but the third day it all went out of itself. 
But with you it has lasted twenty-eight days — as 
long as one of the Little Corporal’s campaigns.” 

“ I am not mistaken, then; you were near me ? ” 

“Well ! I had only to cross the passage. This 
left hand has not made you a bad nurse for want 
of the right ; but, bah ! you did not know what 
hand gave you drink, and it did not prevent that 
beggar of a fever from being drowned — for all 
the world like Poniatowski in the Elster.” 

The old soldier began to laugh, and T, feeling 
too much affected to speak, pressed his hand 
against my breast. He saw my emotion, and 
hastened to put an end to it. 

“ By the by, you know that from to-day you 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


191 


have a right to draw your rations again,” resumed 
he gayly ; “ four meals, like the Gennan meinherrs 
— nothing more ! The doctor is your house stew- 
ard.” 

“We must find the cook, too,” replied I, with 
a smile. 

“ She is found,” said the veteran. 

“ Who is she ? ” 

“ Genevieve.” 

“ The fruit-woman ? ” 

“ While I am talking she is cooking for you, 
neighbor ; and do not fear her sparing either 
butter or trouble. As long as life and death were 
fighting for you, the honest woman passed her time 
in going up and down stairs to learn which way 
the battle went. And, stay, I am sure this is she.” 

In fact we heard steps in the passage, and he 
went to open the door. 

“ Oh, well ! ” continued he, “ it is Mother Mil- 
lot, our portress, another of your good friends, 
neighbor, and whose poultices I recommend to 
you. Come in. Mother Millot — come in ; we are 
quite bonny boys this morning, and ready to step 
a minuet if we had our dancing-shoes.” 

The portress came in, quite delighted. She 
brought my linen, washed and mended by herself, 
with a little bottle of Spanish wine, the gift of her 
sailor son, and kept for great occasions. I would 
have thanked her, but the good woman imposed 
silence upon me, under the pretext that the doc- 


192 an attic philosopher in PARIS. 


tor had forbidden me to speak. I saw her arrange 
everything in my drawers, the neat appearance of 
which struck me ; an attentive hand had evident- 
ly been there, and day by day put straight the 
unavoidable disorder consequent on sickness. 

As she finished, Genevieve arrived with my 
dinner ; she was followed by Mother Denis, the 
milkwoman over the way, who had learned, at the 
same time, the danger I had been in, and that I 
was now beginning to be convalescent. The good 
Savoyard brought me a new-laid egg, which she 
herself wished to see me eat. 

It was necessary to relate minutely all my ill- 
ness to her. At every detail she uttered loud ex- 
clamations ; then, when the portress warned her 
to be less noisy, she excused herself in a whisper. 
They made a circle around me to see me eat my 
dinner ; each mouthful I took was accompanied 
by their expressions of satisfaction and thankful- 
ness. Never had the King of France, when he 
dined in public, excited such admiration among the 
spectators. 

As they were taking the dinner away, my col- 
league, the old cashier, entered in his turn. 

I could not prevent my heart beating as I rec- 
ognized him. How would the heads of the firm 
look upon my absence, and what did he come to 
tell me ? 

I waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to 
speak ; but he sat down by me, took my hand, 


THE END OF THE YEAR. 


193 


and began rejoicing over my recovery, without 
saying a word about our masters. 1 could not 
endure this uncertainty any longer. 

“And the Messieurs Durmer,” asked I, hesitat- 
ingly, “how have they taken — ^the interruption 
to my work ? ” 

“ There has been no interruption,” replied the 
old clerk, quietly. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“Each one in the office took a share of your 
duty ; all has gone on as usual, and the Messieurs 
Durmer have perceived no difference,” 

This was too much. After so many instances 
of affection, this filled up the measure. I could 
not restrain my tears. 

Thus the few services I had been able to do 
for others had been acknowledged by them a 
hundredfold ! I had sown a little seed, and every 
grain had fallen on good ground, and brought 
forth a whole sheaf. Ah ! this completes the les- 
son the doctor gave me. If it is true that the 
diseases, whether of the mind or body, are the 
fruit of our follies and our vices, sympathy and 
affection are also the rewards of our having done 
our duty. Every one of us, with God’s help, and 
within the narrow limits of human capability, him- 
self makes his own disposition, character, and per- 
manent condition. 

Everybody is gone ; the old soldier has brought 
13 


194 AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. 


me back my flowers and my birds, and they are 
my only companions. The setting sun reddens 
my half-closed curtains with its last rays. My 
brain is clear, and my heart lighter. A thin mist 
floats before my eyes, and I feel myself in that 
happy state which precedes a refreshing sleep. 

Yonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in 
her drapery of a thousand changing colors, and 
with her withered garland, again appears before 
me ; but this time I hold out my hand to her with 
a grateful smile. 

“ Adieu, beloved year ! whom I but now un- 
justly accused. That which I have suffered must 
not be laid to thee ; for thou wast but a tract 
through which God had marked out my road — a 
ground where I had reaped the harvest I had sown. 
I will love thee, thou wayside shelter, for those 
hours of happiness thou hast seen me enjoy ; I will 
love thee even for the suffering thou hast seen me 
endure. Neither happiness nor suffering came 
from thee ; but thou hast been the sceno for 
them. Descend again then, in peace, into eternity, 
and be blest, thou who hast left me experience in 
the place of youth, sweet memories instead of past 
time, and gratitude as payment for good offices,” 


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Wayside Courtships. 

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A Spoil of Office. 

A Story of the Modem West. 

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A Story of the West. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

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A Little Norsk; 

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Woman.” i zmo. Cloth, ^i.oo ; paper, 50 cents. 

“ Mrs. Clifford is an adroit writer, whose knowledge of the world and whose 
brilliancy have not destroyed in her a simple tenderness to which every sensitive 
reader must respond.” — Chicago Tribune. 

Mills of God. 

By Elinor Macartney Lane. Illustrated, i zmo. Cloth, 
gi.jo. 

“ It is a good novel in comparison with even the best in current American 
fiction. Its author, in this her maiden effort, easily takes her place among the 
Churchills and the Johnstons and the Runkles.” — Ne%v York Herald. 

The Seal of Silence. 

By Arthur R. Conder. izmo. Cloth, ^i.oo; paper, 50 
cents. 

“ A novel of marked originality, of extraordinary strength. ... I recom- 
mend this very dramatic and exciting story, with its quaint love interest and its 
I dry, quiet humor, to all lovers of a good story capitally conceived and happily 
told.” — George S. Goodwin, in Philadelphia Item. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


RECENT FICTION. 


Sirius. 

By Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, author of Concerning Isabel 
Carnaby,’* “The Farringdons,” etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“It would be difficult to find anywhere more choice, interesting, and useful 
reading than this volume contains.” — Brooklyn Gti%en. 

Betsy Ross. 

A Romance of the Flag. By C. C. Hotchkiss, author of “In 
Defiance of the King,” etc. i2mo. Cloth, ^1.50. 

“Reaches the American ideal in fiction. It is the long-looked-for Ameri- 
can novel. Stirring, intense, dealing with great native characters, and recalling 
some of the noblest incidents connected with our national history, it is the one 
novel of the time that fulfils the ideal that we all had conceived but no one 
before had accomplished.” — Philadelphia Item. 

Mrs. Clyde. 

The Story of a Social Career. By Julien Gordon, author of 
“A Puritan Pagan,” etc. i2mo. Cloth, ^1.50. 

“A pure literary style, combined with graphic incidents, and punctuated 
with deep, shrewdly expressed aphorisms on social forms, makes this a story of 
exceptional strength and interest. This is a strong and brilliant story.” — Phila- 
delphia Item. 

A Royal Exchange. 

V By J. MacLaren Cobban, author of “Pursued by the Law,” 
“ The King of Andaman,” etc. i 2mo. Cloth, ^i. 00; paper, 
50 cents. 

“ Has an atmosphere of romance that is delightful, and the fanciful plot and 
events thereof have a piquancy and delicacy that are charming.” — Chicago Tribune. 

The Mystery of the Clasped Hands. 

By Guy Boothby, author of “Dr. Nikola,” “My Indian 
Queen,” etc. i2mo. Cloth, ^i.oo; paper, 50 cents. 

“No one can write a story of this character with as much skill as Boothby 
shows. In fertility of invention, in use of material, and in dexterous manage- 
ment of effects, he ranks with the very best.” — Buffalo Commercial. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


DR. BARTON'S BOOKS. 


Pine Knot. 

A Story of Kentucky Life. By William E. Barton. Illus- 
trated by F. T. Merrill, i zmo. Cloth, $1.50. 

The story is full of the atmosphere of the quaint mountain 
Jfe with its wealth of amusing peculiarities, and it also has a his- 
torical value, since it pictures conditions attendant upon the anti- 
slavery movement and the days of the war. The interest of a 
treasure search runs through the tale, the author having adroitly 
utilized a mountain legend of a lost mine. ‘'Fine Knot” is a 
romance “racy of the soil ” in a true sense, a story fresh, strong, 
and absorbing in its interest throughout. 

<‘Likc Mr. Allen’s ‘Reign of Law,’ ‘ Pine Knot ’ is a thoroughly whole- 
some story written by a man of earnestness and purpose. It is a novel to be 
read and enjoyed, and then put away to be read later.” — Buffalo Exfrea. 

“The humanity of the book will touch every reader. The quaint pecul- 
iarities of the community are introduced with picturesque effect, but eccentrici- 
ties are only appropriate entertaining accompaniments of a skillfully portrayed 
development of character and social life. Few modern writers possess such a 
power of describing an interesting and generally unknown people so apprecia- 
tively, graphically, and often humorously. — The book has a vivid, cumulative 
interest. ” — Congregation alt it, 

A Hero in Homespun. 

A Tale of the Loyal South. By William E. Barton, izmo. 
Paper, 50 cents; cloth, ;gi.oo. 

“Vigorous, spirited, truthful, absorbing.” — Neiv York Critic. 

“ A thoroughly interesting, red-blooded, virile story, and at the same time 
a historical document of the very greatest value.” — The Bookman, 

“ Will be read with keen enjoyment.” — New York Timet, 

“The story is one of intense interest.” — Boston Herald, 

“ Abounds in life and incident. The men and women move and act 
spontaneously. The primitive customs and usages of the mountaineers have 
been carefully pictured.” — Philadelphia Ledger, 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


RECENT FICTION. 


The Wilderness Road. 

A Romance of St. Clair’s Defeat and Wayne’s Victory. By J. A. 
Altsheler, author of “ In Circling Camps,” “ A Herald of the 
West,” etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ It is a clean, clear-cut story, and pitched on the high plane of Cooper 
of the New World and Scott of the Old.” — Louisville Critic. 


His Letters. 

By JuLiEN Gordon, author of “ Mrs. Clyde,” “A Puritan Pagan,” 
etc. New edition. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Bound to rank high in the mass of epistolary literature — fact and 
fiction — which looms in the season’s output of the army of publishers.” — St. 
Louis Republic. 

The Curious Courtship of Kate Poins. 

By Louis Evan Shipman. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ One of the best-written novels of the year. It will be widely read and 
generally admired. The romance has vigor, tone, and cumulative interest 
that increases as the story ascends to its climax.” — Philadelphia Item. 

The Luck of the Vails. 

By E. F. Benson, author of “Dodo,” “The Rubicon,” “Mammon 
& Co.” i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ A romance of more than usual charm and grace, and, from the literary 
point of view, of undeniable distinction.” — Boston Advertiser. 

From the Unsounded Sea. 

By Nellie K. Blissett, author of “ The Wisdom of the Simple,” 
etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 

“Once engaged in its pages, the reader will not be likely to leave the 
book until it is finished. ... A skilful ly-wrought-out romance of mystery.” — 
Brooklyn Eagle. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 





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